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Welcome to our little corner where we highlight the worse lies, biggest fobs and all-round ludicrous bullshitting that's been spouted out by excited individuals in the games industry over the years, gloriously reproduced for our sadistic amusement.
1. The Nintendo Misty-4's Graphics. These are the press release
screenshots that Nintendo issued many magazines with back in 1995, based on
their much-hyped work with games publisher, Paradigm. They are from a flight sim
called Vampire XDV-7 seemingly from Paradigm's work as a military simulator
designer.
That is exactly like my N64.
2. The Turbo Toss 360. It hurts just to type it. One of the all-time worst controllers ever (as
documented in every identical worst-controllers list published across videogame
websites, every month, everywhere), utilising the most inaccurate, uncomfortable and
thoroughly unnatural control method ever devised. It was also tacky and crap.
According to the designers however, it wasn't... obviously. "It's a revolution in videogame playing, claims Hornby Hobbies of their
new Turbo Touch 360 touch-sensitive joypad. Hornby, the company behind the
train-sets and the Game Genie, says the pad is made using the latest (get this) "touch-sensitive
capacitor technology" to give a faster, more accurate response to the
player's commands, with the touch-sensitivity doing away with every gamer's
worst enemy - the numb thumb." Most gamer's worst enemy is their mum walking in on them having a wank to
Dead or Alive... either that or losing to their girlfriend on Mario Kart. Either
way, Hornby never made a controller ever again. At least that was one
'revolution in videogame playing' that turned out alright. 3. Ultimate Spider-man In 2005, an official press release from Activision announced: "For the first time in a Spider-Man game, gamers get to play both
sides as they triumph over evil as Spider-Man AND assume the role of the super
villain Venom, rampaging through Manhattan as they destroy everything in
their path." Just to be sure you read that right, Brian Pass, the game's producer confirms
once again: "...and for the first time ever in a Spider-Man game we have the
ability to play as both the hero, Spider-Man, and Venom as our villain" And just in case you missed it, Activision had the audacity to wheel out poor
Stan Lee from his mansion to once more advertise this point. For anyone actually alive in 1994, you will remember that Acclaim released a
rather memorable little title by the name of Maximum Carnage. Following
on from one of the most successful comic-book sagas in Spider-man's history, this
was far from a small release; involving a massive televised advertising campaign
from Acclaim, as well as action figures, a big budget soundtrack from
then-successful rockers Green Jelly (featuring a tremendous rendition of Black
Sabbath's 'The Mob Rules' undoubtedly the greatest song ever for beating up
street goons with one button to), being packaged on much-hyped blood-red
cartridges in America and a televised rendition of the story in the massively
successful cartoon series. Maximum Carnage allowed players to, get this, play as
both Spider-man and Venom. Wow Brian, they were so quick to steal your idea,
they jumped the gun and did it 11 years prior. There must be a leak at Activision! Then, a year later, due to the success of the original, Spider-man, and of
course Venom, returned for the sequel, Separation Anxiety! Unfortunately
it was bollocks. But that's not the point, the point is, once again, you could
play as Spider-man and Venom... now in two-player mode! Unfortunately that
didn't change the fact that it was still bollocks. It's apparently easy to forget all that when shamelessly attempting to plug your
crap and make it look a lot more unique than it really is. After all, it doesn't sell as many copies or sound anywhere near as
magical to announce "for the third time ever in a Spider-man
game..." but that doesn't make it excusable. Now, Brian Pass, the world (or
at least the half-a-dozen visitors to this site) shall point fingers and laugh
at you every time you pop into Spar for your bread and papers. Or at the very least
Microsoft will read all this and hire you for their Xbox 360 PR department. More to come... Wanted: John "Has lots of hair, has even more bullshit"
Romero's claims for ragdoll gravity physics in the original Quake. Possibly seen
in PC Format Gold around August 1996. Email: CaptainCommodore@consolesandconkers.co.uk |
