Any form of typing seems to be a very difficult thing to get down to; I sat down at my desk a full two hours ago. Why should this be? I mean I want to do this, I mean I don’t imagine anyone wants to read this, but hey, maybe I can pretend I’m doing something productive this new years eve, instead of playing video games til 11 pm and realising I haven’t made any sort of plans. My main hindrance in getting this article underway was the BBC iplayer, beginning with that Blackadder documentary, moving onto the screenwipe review of 2008, thankfully, the next thing on the iplayer list was Mark Kermode’s review of the years films, placing a massive boring wanker shaped obstruction in the path of procrastination. So, here goes it…
Don’t worry, I’m not going to do that usual boring New Year thing of pouring over the events of the last year, there are a zillion other websites around doing the same shit. The funny thing I always find about reviewing the prior year, unless you are severely autistic or you keep a diary, you can only recall what you exactly played over the last two or three months, can I fuck even remember what was released in May or June, let alone all the way back to January! Usually when you watch a 2008 review you find yourself saying “wasn’t that 2007?”, actually one review I read started talking about Portal as being a big innovation of the year and even me with my hole addled memory distinctly remember playing before last Christmas.
Anyway, the other thing that you’ll no doubt be thinking about this New Year’s before day is that January is almost here! New month! New Gamewank! I’m sure you’ve already worn out your RSS link constantly checking for new episodes, maybe hoping for some kind of seasonal special? Well no, we have time off too you know, this is just a hobby for us! You know what? Fuck you!
I jest of course; I seriously doubt anyone cares enough after 2 episodes (yet!). But I wanted to talk about why I won’t be reviewing Sonic unleashed next month, there is a story there, not an amazing story, but enough to create “content” on our little microsite.
Basically I rented it, I do love Sonic, but I have learned by this point that the act of “wanting to play” a sonic game is always going to set me up for some kind of fall and fall I did.
The first thing I was met with when I began the game was an extended cutscene, now I’ve always been a sucker for opening cut scenes. I played Flashback on the mega drive a zillion times because I was so impressed with the cut scenes, when Sonic CD came out, I made my uncle put the opening fmv on a vhs for me which I watched constantly, even with that shit theme which I recently learned the lyrics to the chorus were “toot toot sonic warrior”- what the fuck does that even mean? Does he have a flatulence problem? (That was shit – sorry).
Where was I? Oh yes, cut scenes. The sonic unleashed opening cinematic was pretty cool, very pretty and in true Sonic tradition it displays how fucking tough sonic is by once again making him fall from outer space AND SURVIVE. But really, I’m not retarded enough to be sidetracked by cut scenes.
So I started playing, first level, not bad actually! I wasn’t hating it, my mind was open! I was enjoying the running and the jumping, moving really fast, in a way, it was the sonic I loved (almost)! Although, it did do that really annoying thing where it grades your performance at the end of the level. On the first level, I was graded ‘D’ – didn’t bother me too much at this point.
Then the horribleness began. I was introduced to a hub level, which gave me access to the other levels; well you know how a hub works. At this stage I was expected to talk to the people living on the island, this was tedious, but it didn’t seem to be entirely necessary, so again I ignored it. But then, I turned into the dreaded “Where-Hog” and it descended into pure hateful tedium. The first where-hog section ended with a boss, not an enjoyably challenging boss, not a “figure out how to kill me” boss, just a fucking “hit me and hope you don’t die before me” boss. This was the point that I started to develop a mild pain in my head, at the time I put it down to fatigue, but it got worse.
I didn’t stop; I knew I had to review it for the show, so I soldiered on. On completion of the penultimate level I played, I was graded ‘E’ accompanied by a disapproving comment from sonic. This was followed by me screaming at the television: “YOU SHOULD BE GREATFUL THAT SOME POOR CUNT IS STUPID ENOUGH TO PLAY YOU, SO DON’T TAKE THE PISS OUT OF ME PLEASE!”
The clincher came however not that far in, the Mayan level, once again I was playing another tedious where-hog level. This came after I had run around the entire hub level speaking to npc’s who all gave me the same answer, til I reached the one who told me where to go, one word – “arbitrary”. So now playing the Mayan level, I reached a check point and progressed into the next room. This room presented me with a tedious block puzzle; you know what I mean, push the blocks around the room to move onto the next bit. This took a couple of minutes as the room was full of enemies, but I made it and progressed to the next room, which was filled with more enemies, that kept respawning for some reason, honestly, soooo many.
I died and had to return to the checkpoint, do the tedious block puzzle once again. This wasn’t so much of a problem, but my head was starting to hurt a little bit more. So I did the puzzle again and moved onto the room full of enemies, which killed me again. I was starting to get pissed off at this stage. Attempt number 4 made my head pound. Because of the pain my performance was failing, but my need to overcome the hard bit pushed me on. Final attempt, attempt number 5, my head was screaming, I had stopped for a few minutes, but as soon as I looked at the screen again the pain came screaming back. I did the stupid block puzzle – push the block onto the platform, turn the wheel, push the other block, blah blah fucking blah, I made it to the next room…
…and died.
Now, I have always been dead against control pad abuse, people who throw control pads bother me. But at that moment, I came so close, but all I could manage was slamming it down onto the cushion of the chair. I then picked up one of the throw cushions, placed it firmly on my face and screamed, I mean I really screamed. Had the cushion not been there, my neighbours probably would have called the police. I removed the pillow and fell back onto the couch, staring at the ceiling, panting, a decision was made. I was not going to review this game.
The disc was removed at that very moment, placed in its plastic envelope and sealed.
True I never really played the game long enough to give it a proper review, this by no means is a full review. Don’t get me wrong, I was going to power through it, give a balanced review. But as I said, the game was causing me pain – ACTUAL PAIN, it was if by leaving my mind open to the game, it gave it the oppurtunity to come in and start abusing it. I’m sorry, but this is a hobby for me, I have no ambition to be a proper gaming journalist, so it didn’t matter. I don’t think anyone’s going to be disappointed. Besides, I’m reviewing Sam and Max season 1 on the Wii! Nobody even knows that it exists! Also, whatever I say in a Sam and Max review will be a lot less obvious than the content of any Sonic Unleashed review. I haven’t really played Sonic Unleashed properly, but it did cause me actual pain, that was enough for me, even a fucking cow knows not to touch an electric fence after it has received one electric shock, playing Sonic further would make me more stupid than an actual cow. Although saying that, I’ll probably play the next one…
…oh, Happy New Year!
Richie
