History CowboyBebopAtHisComputer / VideoGames

** The [[SoBadItsHorrible already horrible]] UK {{Pokemon}} magazine ''Pokémon World'' in general. They never play any of the ''{{Pokemon}}'' games, they just review them with screenshots from Serebii.net, the same goes for the other games they review. In fact, they pretty much just look stuff up on the internet and put it in the magazine and '''bam''' it's made.

* A TV report on ''Kwari'', an [[SoBadItsHorrible albeit dreadful]] MMO FPS in which you would actually earn real money for frags (at the cost of paying for ammunition via microtransactions) and other stuff. Said TV report used ''{{Crysis}}'' footage.

* For {{NightTrap}} this was among the causes for it to recieve far more censorship trouble than it was worth. Before it was even released, articles of the game would go on and on in heavy detail of how it was a rape simulator where you play as a serial killer who snuck into a mansion full of scantily-clad sluts you must trap and screw with, using an army of ninja rapists and bizarre sex toys nobody has any idea how to use, but [[SarcasmMode must definitely be used for rape because it is]]. Some of these people even feel that they know more about the game ''than the actors and producers behind it'' (despite being the same people [[KnowNothingKnowItAll who also admit they've never played it before]]), and it thus sparked so much controversy that it was banned from certain sales and slapped with a needlessly high rating. For those who hadn't played the game, the game was about an undercover sting against a family of vampires, and its your job to ''save'' the women by sitting in mission control and using the traps to capture ''their assailants''. And the girls? They're innocent teenagers in a slumber party who are clothed in nightgowns about as revealing as cake is spicy, one of which is an undercover cop, who her (and your) boss will hand you game overs the minute any of the girls are attacked or otherwise kidnapped by the vamp-ninjas (among other reasons). As for the "sex toys" they are nothing more than blood-drawing thingamajigs so bizarre [[NightmareRetardant you're torn between disbelief or laughter at seeing them in action]]. Really, the only crime it's guilty of is [[{{Narm}} high concentrations of cheese]].
* SonicTheHedgehog: Most bios of Knuckles The Echidna say he is the last of his kind. Tikal, Sinbad, Sir Gawain, Shade, Lord Ix, Nestor, and the pirates would like to have a word with you... and that's not even going into the comic.

* For {{NightTrap}} this was among the causes for it to recieve far more censorship trouble than it was worth. Before it was even released, articles of the game would go on and on in heavy detail of how it was a rape simulator where you play as a serial killer who snuck into a mansion full of scantily-clad sluts you must trap and screw with, using an army of ninja rapists and bizarre sex toys nobody has any idea how to use, but [[SarcasmMode must definitely be used for rape because it is]]. Some of these people even feel that they know more about the game ''than the actors and producers behind it'' (despite being the same people [[KnowNothingKnowItAll who also admit they've never played it before]]), and it thus sparked so much controversy that it was banned from certain sales and slapped with a needlessly high rating. For those who hadn't played the game, the game was about an undercover sting against a family of vampires, and its your job to ''save'' the women by sitting in mission control and using the traps to capture ''their assailants''. And the girls? They're innocent teenagers in a slumber party who are clothed in nightgowns about as revealing as cake is spicy, one of which is an undercover cop, who her (and your) boss will hand you game overs the minute any of the girls are attacked or otherwise kidnapped by the vamp-ninjas (among other reasons). As for the "sex toys" they are nothing more than blood-drawing thingamajigs so bizarre [[NightmareRetardant you're torn between disbelief or laughter at seeing them in action]]. Really, the only crime it's guilty of is [[{{Narm}} high concentrations of cheese]].

* ''1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die'' has its share of mistakes. For one thing, the editor who wrote the entry for ''{{Fallout}}'' seems to have gotten the GECK, the MacGuffin of the ''second'' game, confused with the water purifier chip, the MacGuffin from the first game.

** Bradygames makes [[GuideDangIt plenty of mistakes like this.]] Another {{egregious}} example from the ''Brawl'' guide in particular is that the writer apparently had no idea that [[StarFox the Fire Fox]] (and its similar clones) can move in any direction, and could only move straight upwards. Like with Rest, anyone who's been playing since the first ''Smash'' instantly recognizes this as a load of B.S.

* [[http://www.theonion.com/content/video/are_violent_video_games This Onion video]]. The list of "today's hot new post-apocalyptic" video games gets only 2/3 right ({{Fallout}} 3, ResidentEvil 5 and ''Terminator Redemption''). The last one is a few years old and far from "hot and new".

* The paperback book ''High Score! The Illustrated History of Electronic Games'' covered the development of PC and console games in great detail, except for anything published by Sqauresoft. To the book's credit, it did mention that Squaresoft declined to have its intellectual property featured in the book. But if you are covering a history of console games without Square, what's the point?

** That description is a tongue-in-cheek reference to ''NapoleonDynamite''

* A while back, the Offical Nintendo Magazine in the UK described one of the ''FinalFantasy'' games as being in the top 150 of games. No problem? Well, they say it's ''FinalFantasyIII'' and it's getting a DS remake, but the picture beside it is unmistakeably Kefka. The magazine apparently got Japan's ''Final Fantasy III'' (which actually got a DS remake) and the West's ''Final Fantasy III'' (which was ''FinalFantasyVI'') confused.

** "Video games are addictive" - Plainly subjective.
*** Except we, y'know, [[ScienceMarchesOn have a clinical definition for "addictive"]] and all? And...the research on video games is inconclusive, but some of it can definitely be taken to mean they are.
* The OPM review of ''PrinceOfPersia: The Two Thrones'' contains a reference to ''SuikodenIII'' as a game that's "noticeably worse than its forebears." III actually received ''critical acclaim''; the author was probably thinking of ''IV'', which was pretty much universally panned.

* Any publication that has ''[=~Pokémon~=]'' being called "Pokey-man". Such as the official ''Time Magazine'' archives. Similarly, anything that refers to "Pokémons". (Pokémon is both singular and plural, like sheep, deer, or samurai.)

** Heck, the show's dubbers themselves totally misnamed the Pokémon that appear in the 'Who's that Pokémon?' section of the first movie. Granted, it was Team Rocket naming the Pokémon. Doesn't excuse the "Sandshrew" and "Pidgeotto" bits elsewhere though.
** According to TV Guide and the Comcast information guides, the plot of ''Pokémon: The First Movie'' has Ash and friends battling Mewtwo and the scientist that created him -- despite the fact that Mewtwo killed him within the first few minutes of the film.
*** Also, some information guides describe ''Lucario and the Mystery of Mew'' with, "The Pokemon must rescue Pikachu from the clutches of evil Mew."

** A video game magazine published an accurate yet not fully informative article about the glitch Pokemon Missingno, accompanied by an image of Togepi (with the caption "Missingno is one pokemon you don't want to catch").

*** The author describes Nurse Joy as being an official with the Pokémon League, and having earned that position through a great deal of study. As most folks know, [[InexplicablyIdenticalIndividuals there are many Nurse Joys]], with two individual Joys depicted as an official and as studying to get into the League respectively.
*** The author says that James describes the smell given off by his Koffing as being extremely foul. While James does indeed give that description, it's credited to Gloom, a different Pokémon entirely.

** Dear game journalists: ''OcarinaOfTime /MajorasMask'' Link was the only Hero of Time. The other Links either have different titles or no in game title at all. [[CallARabbitASmeerp And he's not an elf, dammit.]]

* Magazines actually spreading the urban legend that ''SeikenDenesetsu 3'' was canned for localization outside of Japan in favour of ''SecretOfEvermore''. Ignoring that the latter was actually mostly the work of an American team, and that the U.S. got ''ChronoTrigger'' instead of ''Seiken Denesetsu 3''. Not to mention, other magazines have said that ''SecretOfEvermore'' is a ''WorldOfMana'' game. The latter can be easy to assume though, to give them some credit - ''SecretOfEvermore'' actually ''does'' use the same engine as ''SecretOfMana'' and they both have ''Secret of'' in their title, although only people who played the game would realize that the similarities pretty much end there. (Many of the "This must be a sequel to ''SecretOfMana''!" speculations were before the game was released.)

** An infamous video on YouTube shows Yrion [[ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontWatch demonizing popular games of the time]], but the biggest low was when he demonized Pokémon, using the Porygon episode incident as justification, to the point of making stuff up like [[NeverHeardThatOneBefore children foaming from their mouths]]. In other words, WhatAnIdiot.

** On an Italian magazine a kid in the mail section explained how to catch Mew... sadly, it was talking instead of how to catch Mewtwo (which would have been interesting at times because when Red/Blue were out everyone thought it was impossible catching him without a Master Ball).

* A report made by the Spanish [[MoralGuardian Women's Instutute]] called ''TheSims'' as that game where you can be mayor and when they do refer to being woman complains that is mandatory to marry, calls Link from ''TheLegendOfZelda'' an elf and mentions a character disguised as Elvis (?!?) and apparently fails to mention that is a series of games mixing up ''WindWaker'' with ''{{Ocarina of Time}}'' (and perhaps ''[[MajorasMask Majora's Mask]]'' as well), fails to mention that ever since the second generation of Pokemon games they have gender, among many other things that falls in a twarted view of RL StrawFeminist.

* The [[SoBadItsHorrible already horrible]] UK {{Pokémon}} magazine ''Pokémon World'' in general. They never play any of the ''{{Pokemon}}'' games, they just review them with screenshots from Serebii.net, the same goes for the other games they review. In fact, they pretty much just look stuff up on the internet and put it in the magazine and '''bam''' it's made.

** An Australian magazine TV Week misnamed Pokemon in an article for Pokepark: Pikachu's Adventure. These include naming Charmander as a TREECKO, a Chikorita as a CROAGUNK (spelled Croagun), and a Mew as a SHINX. However, this does provide humor as to what the different types and abilities attached to said Pokemon would be like. [[http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/1152/1287288104213.png See it here.]]

* The instruction manual for ''BanjoKazooie'' mentions that Grunty dropped her spellbooks on her way out of the lair. However, the way they talk, it appears as though Cheato is the same spellbook each time, especially in ''BanjoTooie'', when it's more obvious.

** In another instance, during a competition to win a copy of ''MassEffect 2'', the same DJ referred to the game - ''constantly'', and presuambly never realising his mistake and/or not having any of his colleagues point it out to him (either that, or he did realise and just hoped that no-one would notice) - as "Mass 2 Effect".

** They printed a guide to unlocking the secret characters in ''SuperSmashBros Brawl''. In it, they made several glaring errors, such as calling [[TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Sheik]] [[{{Metroid}} Samus]], and printing what they apparently thought was a picture of Marth, except it was a picture of Geoffrey, a totally unrelated ''FireEmblem'' character who not only does not exist in the same universe as Marth, but fights with a [[BladeOnAStick lance]] instead of a [[HeroesPreferSwords sword]], and on horseback. Apparently, everybody with blue hair is the same person.

* In Italy, there is a short commercial break between cartoons called ''Il giardino dei girasoli''(literaly ''Sunflower Garden'') which sometimes have videogames in. Usually they get almost everything right... except when they got to ''KingdomHearts358DaysOver2''. They said nothing about the plot and turned the game into "Wander into the Disney worlds with Mickey, Donald and Goofy while fighting monsters [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere for no reason whatsoever]]". Roxas was never called for name, and Axel and Xemnas were briefly named without explaining who they are. At least with [[KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep Birth By Sleep]] they did a better work...

** To be fair it is very unclear which continuity it exists in although the most likely is the animated series.
*** The "Arkham-verse" is it's own continuity. Word of God.

*** To be fair, that was because of a large number of [[UrbanLegendOfZelda Urban Legends of Zelda]] flying across the internet at the time.
*** The name "Pikablu" appeared in the Topps trading cards for the movie.

** To be fair about the "Pokemans" thing, a lot of hardcore fans have started using it as a joke, so it's easy to see where they could have been misled.

**** Although the gloom in question did suck up Koffing's gas and spit it back out.
**** The back of the book says "Did you know that the swirl on Poliwhirl's chest changes direction when it evolves into Poliwag?" A minor error (the names should be switched), but it still should have been caught before press. You only had 151 Pokémon to keep track of in those days, lady. And you STILL got them mixed up.

** To be fair, it was probably deliberate, seeing as they have a healthily tongue-in-cheek attitude to the whole business and a long-standing tradition of such translation gags.
*** Oh, this is definitely a case of an intentional mistranslation. Finnish gaming mags, with Pelit at vanguard, have a long-standing tradition of picking at awful Finnish movie and game translations.
**** [[http://www.google.com/search?q=recursion&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a This could be the case of an intentional trope. The Finns have a reputation for their lighthearted appreciation for mistranslations.]]
** Also, the country's largest newspaper, ''Helsingin Sanomat'', had a little text about the release of ''CommandAndConquer: Red Alert 3''. Not only did they call it ''CommandAndConquer 3'', but the writer theorised that the game glorifies the war in Iraq. This is a game where USA, the USSR and Japan battle each other in a world war, for freak's sake.
*** A world war involving [[RefugeInAudacity war bears, whip-wielding mecha angels, and anti-submarine dolphins]].
**** [[CompletelyMissingThePoint Dolphins can't attack subs]] in [=RA3=]. WHA-BAM.

**** "Jew Sex"
*** It's derived from the term "DeusExMachina", if that wasn't obvious.

** To be fair, it's ''[[{{Parody}} The Onion.]]''
*** As you could probably tell from other examples here, don't always expect 2/3 from genuine news resources.

** To be fair, she is quite a mother figure to Genis, and anyone paying less-than-stellar attention could believe it.

* Bradygames' strategy guide for the original ''SuperSmashBros.'' writes this about Jigglypuff: "Never press Down and B with Jigglypuff. Just don't. Jigglypuff will fall asleep. What this move has to do with fighting, we'll never know. Don't say we didn't warn you." Anyone who has played as Jigglypuff can tell you this is the Rest move, and if used properly, it becomes a OneHitKill against the opponent.

**** In Classical Latin, "Deus" is pronounced like "deuce." It's a rare exception to the general rule that "eu" is an imperfect diphthong in the "eus" suffix. It might be pronounced "day-us" in Vulgate Latin.
***** Do you have a source for that? I'm pretty sure the Classical pronunciation would be, in IPA, /'deus/. 'Deuce' in English is /dus/ or /djus/, depending on one's accent.

* One review of ''{{Lunar}}: Eternal Blue'' that heavily criticized the game while blatantly appearing to only be drawing from the beginning of it inspired WorkingDesigns to publicly call them out and pull their advertising from the magazine. The magazine later admitted that they only played ~25% of the game.

* While it's not to see where the writer of [[http://www.thegrio.com/entertainment/is-enslaved-video-game-racially-insensitive.php/ is coming from]], it would do him some good to take a quick trip to the other wiki and look up the [[JourneytotheWest novel]] the game is based on.

* While it's not to see where the writer of [[http://www.thegrio.com/entertainment/is-enslaved-video-game-racially-insensitive.php/ is coming from]], it would do him some good to take a quick trip to the other wiki and look up the [[JourneytotheWest novel]] the game is based on.

**** Dolphins can't attack subs in RA3. WHA-BAM.