Episode 78
General: Boobs and sex scenes from God Of War, such as a brief clip of Kratos' threesome in God of War 2 (PS 2, 2006). The angry warrior finds two willing wenches hidden behind a screen. He can then join the topless twosome for some quick stress relief. Instead of showing the deed, the camera focuses on a peeing boy fountain, and a minigame ensues. Before he finishes, the stream of the fountain increases greatly in intensity.
Having never played the game, I was quite shocked to learn years later from a You Tube video about the most disturbing bosses from non-horror video games that a hideous, gigantic, topless boss in the game... was actually female.
12:09: Failure clips from “The Mercenaries” minigame in Resident Evil 4. How does the game let you know you have failed? By decapitating your characters. For this rehashed clip, they chose really creepy music not in the actual game.
“The Mercenaries” was first introduced in Resident Evil 3 Nemesis (known as Biohazard: Last Escape in Japan), and came roaring back in RE4. At first, I didn't like it, because it was difficult to get a high score, without running out of time and health at the same time. But I appreciated it much more in Resident Evil 5 (multiplatform, 2009), where it had a super-fun co-op mode. It was my favorite part of the game, besides the villain, Wesker, of course.
14:57: A short clip from Dead or Alive Xtreme (Xbox, 2003) where Kasumi the kunoichi sees a shooting star and makes a little wish. Kind of cute.
Episode 79
1:54: Clips from Outlaw Volleyball (multiplatform), a spinoff of the cheap, trashy, and stereotypical Outlaw Golf series. One of the selling points of the game was the ability to abuse your caddy to increase your composure. The characters would blame the caddies for their mistakes. What is this teaching children who play video games about responsibility?!
We all know that fighting games, great and diverse that they are, tend to skirt the line of stereotypes to provide such diversity, but the Outlaw series decided to get on the “fun”, too. Almost every character is a stereotype, as demonstrated in the intro for Outlaw Golf 2
:
- There's Italian-American Donna, who has to wax under her nose because Italians are... hairy?
- Natasha, the loyal Soviet. Methinks her stereotype is a few decades too late. Actually featured in OV, included her for completeness
- Ice Trey, Pretty Fly for a White Guy
- Killer Miller, the ex-convict
- Harley, the Southern biker chick who wears the Confederate flag across her United States, if you know what I mean
- Clem, the redneck
- Harvest, the cute, young, blonde redneck
- El Suave, the Latin heartthrob who actually dresses in dorky, stereotypical golfer clothes.
It's kind of fun in the sense of being completely shameless, but the series was generally considered not very good or funny. Perhaps the concept (giving golf an XTREME makeover) was flawed from the start, and the sleazy gags weren't enough to dress it up.
15:34: The intro for Drunna: Morbus Gravis (2001, PC), based on an Italian Heavy Metal/Metal Hurlant comic (NSFW Wikipedia link!). The intro has generic techno music and doesn't explain the story at all, but it does show large-breasted heroine Druuna and a collection of twisted and even gory characters. The rendering and animation are questionable. There is a montage of death animations on You Tube, probably NSFW, I haven't watched it.
Episode 80
2:55: Consider for a moment just how few games really get broadcast ad campaigns. Then consider the fact that Cubivore (Nintendo Game Cube) got a broadcast ad in Japan. It starts off peaceful enough, with a crowd of cube pigs grazing, until a big, nasty, cubical carnivore decides to get in there are tear stuff up. The closest it gets to Nightmare Fuel is when the last piggy squeals as the carnivore drags it around, then eats its whole body in an orgy of cubical blood.
Episode 81
13:31: Hey, look, it's the intro to Phantasmagoria (PC), the somewhat notorious adventure/horror game from Sierra! It features entirely computer generated environments, which means it is dated-looking, but still has gruesome sights such as dangling hooks, body parts, torture devices, and a snake with a man's head. It is actually a Catapult Nightmare of the heroine, who wakes up and is relieved to find that it was just a dream... only for a Scare Chord to snap up as a heavy, metallic mask screws onto her face.
The tale of Phantasmagoria is an interesting one. The game wasn't considered very good even when it was released, and as it ages, the Narmfulness of the acting and the dated rendering of the game's environments becomes even more prominent. Yet, creator Roberta Williams chose it as the game that best represents her career as a game designer. As a horror game, the fact that the characters are portrayed by flesh and blood actors makes it slightly scarier and wrong, but the acting is cheesy. The heroine's husband, who becomes more and more possessed by a demon over the course of the game, is just too wooden, and when he tries to act evil, he's too goofy to take seriously. The game was also criticized for invoking Rape as Drama and failing, as this review from Hardcore Gaming 101 states. Although, would you really want it to succeed? Rape is so difficult to write into a story tastefully. In video games, Silent Hill 2 (multiplatform, 2001) is one of the few to ever do so, arguably.
The game also has one hell of a Downer Ending. A website called techtite.com declared it number one on its list of the worst game endings ever. However, the list is a few years old, and only features a couple of console games (Halo 2 and the game based on XIII). But the two-part list is still an interesting watch on their old You Tube account.
For me, what makes a really bad ending is one that makes the time you spent with the story a total waste.
Nonetheless, the game did have a couple of scary and gory parts: the Game Overs from the final stage of the game, where the consequences of failure were severe. Read about them on I-Mockery, but beware of the gore.
15:31: The Dino Hunters (PC), a free FPS from kumagames.com, and it shows. The characters' animations are awkward; the game tries to have a sense of humor, but the script and voice acting are awkward and vulgar; one of the characters is an Expy of the Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin; enemies include giant, bloodthirsty beavers; and somehow, everything winds up in space at some point. Well, maybe it's So Bad, It's Good.
