You finally got your Halo 3 beta invite, you were made a fool of on American Idol and after four hours you finally got Windows Vista installed! It sounds like you just barely survived the last month of 2007! It's a month that brought us Wario Ware, a fat Tyra Banks and the return of Jack Bauer. But just because you've been spending all your time in rehab, Lindsay Lohan, it doesn't mean you have to miss all of the crazy happenings of January 2007. This is Defunct Games RECAPPED!!, your monthly guide to the best and worst of the last 31 days. This is all the stuff you missed, all the stuff you forgot about and all the stuff you can't wait to see again! So if you partied too hard because you were nominated for a bunch of Oscars, Little Miss Sunshine, it doesn't mean you have to miss a single review or article! Who cares that you already broke your New Year's Resolutions? We think it's about time you check out the best (and worst) articles of January 2007!
Why This Article?
After a two month hiatus After Thoughts was back with a bang. It didn't take long for GameSpot, 1up and all the other video game websites to develop embarrassing footage that we could mock and ridicule. In our newest episode of After Thoughts we take a look at the World of WarCraft fans, a contentious David Jaffe interview, Mortal Kombat, Alien Hominid and all the excitement of the 2007 Consumer Electronic Show. And that's not all, we also try to figure out why Luke Smith is such a prick and why we have so few Mii characters on Nintendo's newest game system.
Although this is only the fourth episode, After Thoughts is quickly becoming one of the most popular shows on Defunct Games. Each month we uncover the most ridiculous video game footage from around the net, pulling clips from On the Spot, GameSpot tournaments, The 1up Show, and much more. This month was especially fun because so many of the sites had extra video features, including fun little trips to conventions. And to top it all off, this episode of After Thoughts has what has to be the most ridiculous moment in Button Mashing history. Don't know what we're talking about? Well now is your chance to watch all 30 minutes of After Thoughts: Mii Characters and see why we feel it's currently the best article of 2007!
Post-Article Thoughts:
"I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love these episodes of After Thoughts. I don't care if they take a little longer to put together, there's nothing quite like displaying all of the crazy/stupid footage other sites are proud of. I think this episode is especially entertaining; it has some of my favorite moments from Button Mashing, GameSpot's game show, and 1up's very own The 1up Show. Of course, the real reason I'm proud of this episode is because at 30 minutes it's a good ten minutes longer than the past entries. As far as I'm concerned there is not a dull moment in After Thoughts: Mii Characters and I'm going to stand by that. In fact, if you find that you don't like this episode you need to get a hold of me immediately and let me know why you hate comedy. This is pure gold people, the kind of gold that makes you warm inside (but doesn't make you rich)."
-Cyril Lachel
Why This Article?
These days you can't surf the internet without running into some stupid article outlining the games people want to play on Nintendo's Virtual Console. Everybody and their mother has a list of titles they would actually spend money on, generally including a lot of Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. But Defunct Games wanted to do one better. We don't care what games you want, we'll leave that to all of those other me-too websites. Instead
we are going to offer up our list of the 25 Games We Will Never See on the Virtual Console! That's right; this is a five page list of games that will never be uploaded to Nintendo's server, including games that have licensing problems, controversies and other complications. This is your chance to read our list and prove us wrong, but we assure you that as long as the Nintendo Wii is still a viable console none of these games will be released on it!
Post-Article Thoughts:
"Making a list like this is probably a bad idea, I almost expect Nintendo to release half of these in February just to discredit me. But even though this is putting me in an awkward position, I feel that this list of 25 games that will never be featured on the Virtual Console is fairly airtight. It's not that these are bad games (although, some really are terrible), it's just that not every game ever created can make the cut ... and these are some of the titles you aren't going to have to worry about buying. Since posting this article I have received a lot of good suggestions, but I only had 25 spots to fill up. It would have been just as easy to include 50 games and have most of them be lame licensed games, but we wanted to go for a variety of reasons why certain games won't show up on the Virtual Console. It's my mission to have at least one major article like this each and every month, I guess you'll have to stay tuned to find out if I can actually pull it off!"
-Cyril Lachel
Why This Article?
Although the Nintendo Wii's controls offer a number of crazy and inventive new ways of controlling your game, so far most of the concepts have been pretty mundane. That's not to say that Zelda and Trauma Center don't take advantage of the motion sensing controls, but neither of these games revolutionize the way we control the action. Eventually this will change, especially if titles like Rockstar Games Presents Lawn Darts are
released. This extreme sports game combines the best elements of the motion control with a sport that you can't even play anymore. Millions of kids from around the world will miss out on the excitement of Lawn Darts, but that doesn't have to be the case. All it will take is a game like Lawn Darts to show the true potential of the Nintendo Wii. And frankly, if that's not a good enough reason to have this on our list of the best articles of January 2007 then I don't know what is.
Post-Article Thoughts:
"This is a concept I had well before the launch of the Wii, yet for some odd reason I decided to hold off on writing the full article. After seeing what happened to the Wii over the past three months I'm glad I avoided this article, because little did I know how prevalent the Wii injuries would be. Before the system launched this was nothing more than a cute play on the idea of using the motion control, but now that everybody is starting to get bruised up and break furniture a game like Lawn Darts feels somewhat necessary. If you're going to hurt your little brother and break the lamp why not do it with the one sport that practically pushes you to do harm. Lawn Darts may have been outlawed twenty years ago, but that doesn't mean we can't have a good time reliving our youth with a title like Rockstar Games Presents Lawn Darts. What do you say Rockstar? Isn't it about time you give the Wii some lovin'?"
-Cyril Lachel
Why This Article?
With a site like Defunct Games it can be somewhat difficult to balance our love for the old school with our need to discuss the new school. But sometimes there are articles that lend themselves well to this balancing act, and So ... How Was Your Anniversary? is one of those articles. This is a feature that takes a look at five different game
franchises that are all celebrating major anniversaries, including Tomb Raider, Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda, Metal Slug and Sonic the Hedgehog. Some of these popular franchises managed to give their fans a reason to celebrate, while others could care less about remembering their roots. Although we had an idea of where this article was going, this was the type of feature that surprised even the people that worked on it. And maybe that's the reason we feel that it's the fourth best story of January 2007!
Post-Article Thoughts:
"Going into this article I had some preconceived ideas, I figured that I already knew all I needed to know about these five anniversaries. But while I wrote the feature I started to notice something, some of the things I felt strong about changed. For example, going into this article I thought that Tomb Raider had a pretty good year. I mean, let's face it, Eidos was able to revive the series with one solid game that everybody should play. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that they failed to deliver on their promise of the Tomb Raider remake, which means that when they actually do release the "anniversary" game it won't be the 10 year birthday anymore. As I went about writing all five of these sections I came to the realization that sometimes writing an article can be cathartic, it allowed me to center my emotions and tell it like it really is. I now realize that this is the kind of article I hope to write every year, if only to help remind myself what is really important."
-Cyril Lachel
Why This Article?
It wouldn't be a monthly recap without an episode of Commercial Break. This month we had two to choose from, and The Knights of Bad Advertising managed to win out by the slimmest of margins. Perhaps it's the silliness of NARC or our rally against the sport of soccer (football)? Or maybe it's because it features a Mad Max-style hero
with a mullet. Nah, the reason this article managed to make out list of the best articles of January 2007 is because it has the best collection of bad advertising options. These four commercials span a wide variety of genres, platforms and styles. Where else are you going to see yellow blood and green creatures with Mohawks? There's only one place that is able to put all of these horrible adverts on one page, and that's the Commercial Break!
Post-Article Thoughts:
"You would think that after 32 episodes (33 if you include The Real Housewives of Bad Advertising) we would be running out of terrible commercials, but we're not. And as far as I'm concerned The Knights of Bad Advertising proves it. Something else it proves is that no matter how obvious the titles are, there are always a few people that are confused. One of the most asked questions last month was: "What is this episode making fun of?" Apparently nobody out there watched the pilot of The Knights of Prosperity (which debuted the same day this article went live). That's a shame, because it's not a bad show ... for a 30 minute sitcom. I wonder what I'm going to run out of first: bad advertisements or TV shows to make fun of."
-Cyril Lachel
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