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| I mean, how could it possibly be bad? |
The folly of hype: sometimes your favorite characters just aren't as awesome to play as in a videogame as they are to read as or look at or masturbate to. I mean, really, sometimes it's not the character's fault, but often expect so much of characters that are awesome as NPCs, unplayables or villains, but by the time it happens, you end up wondering: what happened?
5) Magneto: X-Men 2: Clone Wars
When you think Magneto in terms of videogames, you think awesomely broken or bad Engrish quotes. But Magneto's debut in playability was decidedly more humble.
Magneto: Master of the Power Walk!
Featured heavily in the box art and in blurbs on the back of the box, the fact that you could now play as the Master of Magnetism in this Sega Genesis plataformer sequel was, in fact, hyped. The first thing you wanted to do was take this bad boy for a spin, flying and bending metal and tearing ass through the game. But syke! You don't even to choose your first character! And it's probably Beast!
FUUUUUUUCK!
But by the time you get to the 4rth-ish stage and defeat Magneto. 's clone, you get to play as him. How awesome is it? Not very. He doesn't really fly. He hovers in place. He can shoot magnetic thingies that explode into little thingies that kill the bad guys, but there are no enemies that complex in this game that make it an advantage. What a gyp!
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| You don't know what this means to 9 year old me. |
But an understandable gyp, for sure. Hey, it's a plataformer. Once you can fly, that's most of the challenge gone. And let's not talk of implementing magnetism in a Sega Genesis game.
However, because the developers knew that someday someone might be reasonable to them, they chose the stage after Magneto became playable to be the hardest possible stage for him: an uphill climb up a tower with falling rocks. It's already fucking annoying for most the other characters, but when the character you most likely chose because of how awesome he is has the power to "stand absolutely still in the air" that you can activate with one of the 3 working buttons as rocks pelt him own and trolls knock him down to a lower ledge, you will understand what "disapointment" truly means.
4) Eggman: Sonic Adventure 2
The whole hand!
The Sonic series successfully made awesome playables out of Tails and Knuckles. So what happened?
After people kinda didn't like many of the playstyles Sonic Adventure had, Sega narrowed it down to 3 styles of play separated between two teams of different spectrums of morality. One of those styles was of Mecha driver, a spiritual successor to the aim and shoot antics of E-102. The good guys had Tails, while the bad guys had mustachioed megalomaniac Dr Eggman.
But, you know, it was the first time you could play as Robotnik/Eggman in the main Sonic series. At this point, his brand as series villain had sort of devaluated as bigger, badder, and less memorable monsters took center stage. But it was still Eggman. NOT on his hovering, variedly armed vehicles. Not converting animals into robot animals. But on a mech. Shooting shit.
So it is a little sad that we got to control Eggman during his mecha phase, is what I'm saying.
3)Velociraptor: Turok 2
Raptors are a boon to dinosaur enthusiasts. Before Jurassic Park it was all about how huge they where and how many times over you fit in their mouth. But the Spieldberg movie put raptors on notice and said:" you know, even a smaller, faster dinosaur could wreck your day."
So when we learned that Turok 2 would have the carnivore berserkers as playable multiplayer characters, we thought it would be really awesome. How cool would it be to swiftly and mercilessly jump at your unwise, guntoting enemies and gut them with your huge ass toe-claws.
Of course, we had forgotten an important part of any FPS: The "S".
Of course Raptors can't carry guns. That would be stupid. The Raptor makes up for this lack of opposable thumbs by sheer speed. Also, you will certainly lose the game by score, but you can always fall back on the old "Of course I died. I was a fucking Raptor, and you had a a plasma gun!"
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| Seriously, stand still. I want to kill, too! |
Raptors are a boon to dinosaur enthusiasts. Before Jurassic Park it was all about how huge they where and how many times over you fit in their mouth. But the Spieldberg movie put raptors on notice and said:" you know, even a smaller, faster dinosaur could wreck your day."
So when we learned that Turok 2 would have the carnivore berserkers as playable multiplayer characters, we thought it would be really awesome. How cool would it be to swiftly and mercilessly jump at your unwise, guntoting enemies and gut them with your huge ass toe-claws.
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| Berserker Barrage! |
Of course, we had forgotten an important part of any FPS: The "S".
Of course Raptors can't carry guns. That would be stupid. The Raptor makes up for this lack of opposable thumbs by sheer speed. Also, you will certainly lose the game by score, but you can always fall back on the old "Of course I died. I was a fucking Raptor, and you had a a plasma gun!"
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| Alternatively: "Moooom! Dylan's not playing fair!" |
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| Yeesh. There's a bad side of dying at one's peak, huh? |
I don't think there has yet been a great playable Bruce Lee. Ironically, the many imitators tend to be closer in spirit that any upfront attempts at bringing the father of the Martial arts movie genre back to virtual life.
However, I guess if I had to pick out one, it would be the one I played: 2002's Quest of the Dragon.
Featuring a dinky story where Bruce has to rescue his father from Ninjas while working as a secret agent, there is nothing awesome in the clunky, unintuitive fights Bruce Lee gets in. There is no relief in the repetitive voice over use. There is no rest on the biggest anticlimactic final boss fight the Xbox ever saw. But if you like the Black Eyed Peas, in the intro menu there's...
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| I mean, I liked it...but I know where you're coming from. |
But this game was hyped from the start: back when Xbox wasn't more than a actual X-shaped box and a color scheme. But instead of joining Halo and DoA as Xbox mainstays, it joined Alice and Maelstrom(Yes, EXACTLY) as reminders that concept doesn't trump execution. And that games need time and money to be good.
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| Not a joke: This is your final boss battle. |
1) Gannon: Smash Bros. Melee
Now, I was never deeply into the Zelda franchise. Started on some of the games, never finished them. But I know of it's boss. It's that pig guy `that sometimes looks like a green Adrien Brody, right? He's supposed to be a big deal, right?
On his defense, It ain't easy being a green man in a white dwarf's world.
So when I heard he was making his playable debut in Smash Bros Melee for the Gamecube, I thought it might be cool. It's the final boss to one of the most iconic franchises in gaming: how bad can you mess it up?
But it turns out...he's Captain Falcon.
Not even a little attempt at trying the model to the character he's supposed to be, no. They put a bit of Gannon paint over Captain Falcon, took away Falcon's quotes, and there it is.
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| The whole point of Capn' Falcons moves was that he didn't have any. What's your excuse? |
Now, here's the thing: remember that Phoenix Wright movesetI did? I used to do things like that all the time as a kid. I remember sitting in front of my school and making moves for Disney characters and Sonic characters. And I'm sure I'm not nearly as talented and creative as the people at Nintendo and Hal studios.
As little I know of Zelda, I could go on Youtube right now, watch two Gannon boss fights, and probably come up with the no more than 5 special Attacks a Gannon character would need in Smash Bros. I don't know if they corrected it in future Sb games, but as it stands, they might as well have not put Gannon at all. And that's probably the saddest thing you can say about the inclusion of a character.
