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.

Unexplained Strangeness in Bully

Have you ever come across a character in a game whose back-story isn't explained, despite the fact that we know the back-story could be awesome, even to the point of rivaling the main storyline?  It's annoying that game developers sometimes leave interesting stories out of our games, so that we may only speculate in forums or (shudder) fan fiction.  But as with all media, the authors can't explain everything or the games/movies/books would never be released.  In this article I'm going to be looking at some of the weird things in Rockstar's Bully game that have unfortunately gone unexplained.

But wait a second, Bully?  A game about a kid taking over a private school?  You might be thinking that other than the exaggerated high-school setting, there's nothing too interesting happening in the background.  But keep in mind that this is a Rockstar game, remember all the crazy things you heard on the car radios in the Grand Theft Auto games?  Not to mention the supposed Bigfoot sightings in GTA San Andreas.  Bully surprisingly contains some aspects from the science fiction and horror genres.

The presence of aliens is strongly implied in the game.  One of the missions in Bully has you collecting transistor radios for a hobo camped out next to the school.  Once you've given all the radios to the hobo, he builds some kind of device, and then is promptly pulled into the sky by a huge tractor beam, never to be seen again.

Beam me up Jimmy!

That's not all the alien evidence either.  Later on in the game you get access to the nearby asylum, where you discover more hints.  In one room is a portrait of a scientist standing next to what looks like a little alien:

Like all conspiracy theories involving aliens, low quality photos are to be expected.

Further exploration takes you to a room with X-ray images hung on a wall.   Some of these images appear to show an alien's head.

I don't know about you, but when I was playing through Bully I definitely wanted to learn more about the alien presence in the little town this game is set in, it seemed more interesting than the game's plot of taking over the school.

Earlier I also mentioned horror aspects in Bully.  It is hinted that there is a werewolf inhabiting the area.  In the same X-ray room mentioned above, there are also an X-ray showing what appears to be a wolf-ish head on a human body.  Nearby in the asylum is an area that looks to have once been barricaded off.  When you come across this area, the barricades have long since been violently destroyed, giving the appearance that something has broken out of the asylum.  Another fun thing Rockstar added to this game is a werewolf mask that you can equip.  The interesting part is that the mask has a facial scar similar to that of the game's main antagonist Gary (coincidence?).  Add to that the occasional howling sounds that can be heard at night, and you have one fun side-story that the developers have left mostly to our imaginations.

 This concludes my look at some interesting story possibilities in Bully that have yet to be explored in depth.  What kind of unexplained game stories have you guys come across?

A Super Turbo Turkey Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!  Hope everyone's having a good time and getting ready for some great food.  Before you pass the mashed potatoes, how about celebrating Thanksgiving by playing a little Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3?  Ok so this isn't an actual standalone game, it's a mini-game/Easter egg in Doom 3.  Early on in Doom 3 you come across an arcade machine containing a mini-game with Doom 1-style graphics, where you play as the original Doom Guy, punching turkeys with the brass knuckles from Doom 1.  Strange? Yes.  Addicting? Possibly.


Of course if you're not a turkey fan, you could always harass some chickens in a Zelda game.  Have fun!

Andross: The Disembodied Head from Hell

What happens when you take the 3D head of Mario from the title screen of Super Mario 64, then make it infinitely more ugly and frightening to children?  Why you get Andross from Star Fox 64 of course!

Separated at birth?

This freak final boss has been creeping us out since the days of the original Star Fox on Super Nintendo, but today we're only going to focus on his N64 incarnation.  Apparently Andross used to be a regular non-evil scientist on Corneria before (cliché alert!) he went mad with power and was banished from the planet.  What's interesting to note is that before being banished, Andross didn't have an enormous disembodied head, giving rise to questions about the nature of his experiments after leaving Corneria.  This is something that for some strange reason has always been fascinating to me, how and why did he lose the rest of his body and turn his head into the Death Star?

As if this weren't strange enough, the big bad head has two different forms you can battle, depending on the path you take through the game.  There's Robo-Andross, where you find out that the disembodied head you were fighting was just a giant robotic Andross:

Proof that Skynet has a sense of humor.

And then there's Scare-the-Hell-Out-of-Little-Kids-Andross, which is supposedly his true form: a giant floating brain with two eyeballs that can independently fly around.

Even if you were to accept that some kind of science experiment would let you live as a giant head, living as a giant talking brain with huge paddle-ball-ish eyes seems a bit far-fetched.  We were given no explanation as to how this happened, but to be honest we were all so shocked by this revelation that we probably wouldn't have listened to an explanation anyway.

On that note, I leave you to ponder what was going through the Nintendo devs' giant floating brains when they devised this final boss in Star Fox 64.

The Possible Recurring Cast of Skyward Sword (Massive Speculation)

After all this time, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is almost upon us! The first and last Wii-exclusive Zelda title (remember, Twilight Princess was also a Gamecube title) looks to send the Wii out with a bang. It is much too early to speculate what the Zelda games will be like once the franchise inevitably moves to the Wii U, seeing as we don't know much about it other than the controller looks like a giant white high-definition Sega Game Gear. However, with Skyward Sword's release just around the corner, now is the perfect time to add to the excitement by guessing what will be in this game.

In this article I wanted to speculate about which recurring characters we will see in Skyward Sword. Recurring characters are no stranger to the Zelda franchise, which of course features the same protagonist in every game. After the series' jump to 3D with Ocarina of Time, more and more characters in the Zelda universe have made an appearance in some form. Majora's Mask is an extreme case due to being set in an alternate universe to Ocarina of Time, with alternate versions of most of the Hyrule population. With that said, let's take a look at a few characters from past Zelda games, and make a wild guess if they will appear in Skyward Sword.

The Postman

We all know this guy, he was called the Running Man during his first Zelda appearance in Ocarina of Time, and since then has taken up a career in postal delivery for later Zelda games. I'd almost be willing to bet money he will show up in Skyward Sword, mainly because of how many times this guy has put in a cameo lately. Imagine the possibilities! The Postal Man with winged boots, running/flying through the clouds to deliver mostly pointless mail to Link.  Not too exciting, but maybe I just want to see the Postman run on air.

The Happy Mask Salesman

Ok I know this would probably be a stretch. We haven't seen the quick-tempered mask salesman on a non-handheld console since Majora's Mask. Presumably this is because he's the first person you see when you respawn in the clock tower, during the period when you are dangerously enraged by yet another repeated failure to save Clock Town from the evil of Miyamoto's three-day time limit. Still, we've all had over ten years to cool off and (mostly) get over our grudge against the mask salesman for making us repeat the same three days over and over in a style that Dark Tower fans will appreciate.  It would be fun to see this guy in Skyward Sword, if only for the nostalgia.

Tingle

You didn't think I'd leave Tingle off this list did you?

Admit it, before reading a single word in the opening paragraph of this article, you made a quick scroll-through to see if I was going to mention this character.  I know, I'm always getting on Tingle's case.  Why the Nintendo devs chose to include the flamboyant map-maker/creepy man-elf in so many Zelda games, we may never know. Tingle hasn't put in an appearance outside of handheld consoles since the horror known as Tingle Island in the Wind Waker, but I wouldn't be surprised if he made a triumphant return to our nightmares through Skyward Sword. I grudgingly admit that he would probably be a good fit for this game, due to the balloon he uses to float around. Can't you just picture him flying hundreds of feet above Hyrule field, slowly drifting towards Link with his balloon, blood dripping down his chin while he sings Tingle Tingle Kooloo-Limpah? Maybe he'll even make an appearance as an optional boss battle:

This concludes my quick speculation as to what Zelda characters could make a cameo appearance in Skyward Sword. What recurring characters would you guys like to see in this latest Zelda release?

The Launch of Skyrim

Happy Skyrim launch day!  Unfortunately I haven't picked up my copy yet, but I'm dying to play through.  After spending way over 200 hours in Oblivion (and still barely touching the Shivering Isles expansion), I can't wait to explore the new game world and begin treasure hunting in the caves/temples/tombs.

I came across this funny Skyrim-ish video on Youtube, I guess now we know what the game would look like with super extra low PC settings:


Have you guys picked up Skyrim yet? Or are you saving for the other big release of the year: Skyward Sword?

An Odd GTA Moment: The Heart of Liberty City

I don't know about you guys, but after seeing the trailer for Grand Theft Auto V, I'm pretty excited to return to San Andreas.  In GTA San Andreas it was awesome having three distinct cities to visit, with miles of country for you to explore in between each city.  Sure GTA IV had three areas of Liberty City to explore, but the city environment was pretty similar in each section, and to get to each area you merely had to drive across a bridge.  Sure it was still fun to roam around, but when you've walked down an alley for the thousandth time, it gets a little old.


Another thing in GTA V that I'm really hoping for is a return to the goofiness of some of the missions.  In GTA IV it seemed like every mission included driving to a warehouse, taking part in a lengthy shootout in said warehouse, then participating in a car chase (as a side note, I loathe the drive-by shooting controls).  Whatever happened to the completely crazy missions of the previous GTA games?  Whatever happened to luring a group of people to an ice cream truck by playing the truck's music, then detonating a bomb in the truck to kill them all?  Whatever happened to loading dead bodies into the back of a dump truck, then driving the truck to a lake to dump them?

GTA IV definitely went with a more "realistic" approach, but there is one thing in this game that stands out, and not only is it unrealistic, it's completely out of place.  What I'm talking about is the Easter egg known as the Heart of Liberty City.  Unbeknownst to some GTA IV players, deep within the Statue of Happiness is a gigantic beating heart.  An actual living, pumping heart that dwarfs Niko when he dares venture into the statue.  I have to admit this creeped me out a little when I found out about this; it seems more at home in a Sci-Fi game then in an open world sandbox like Grand Theft Auto.  Don't believe me?  See for yourself:


Why is there a heart inside the Statue of Happiness? Is it alive in some way?  Did a science experiment go wrong?  The game offers no explanation, so we are left to wonder.