You just spent four days translating a foreign language at the Tokyo Game Show, you got tasered at a John Kerry speech, and after months of mulling it over you finally decided to sue CBS for $70 million! It sounds like you just barely survived September 2007. It's a month that brought us a racist Bill O'Reilly, the new Fall TV shows, and Halo 3. But just because you want everybody to leave Britney along, Chris Crocker, that does mean that you have to miss out on all of the fun. This is Defunct Games RECAPPED!!, your monthly guide to the best and worst of the last 30 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 there's no need for you to hold a bunch of sports fans at gunpoint to get your stuff back, OJ Simpson, because Defunct Games has you covered. Prepared to be horrified by the best articles and reviews of September 2007!
Why This Article?
It's not often we feature an episode of The Cover Critic as the best article of the month, but September was that kind of month. But don't let the fact that this is a Cover Critic episode fool you, this is definitely one of the best episodes we've done in years ... and easily the best article of the month. The Cover Critic is our semi-regular feature where we take the worst examples of box art we can find and then we rip them a new one. There's nothing worse than bad cover art, especially when it's for a really good game. So we do our part in telling you what's good, what's bad and what's so horrendously horrible that it makes our calf muscles hurt.
In this outstanding episode of The Cover Critic we check in with some of the worst covers we've had the displeasure of meeting face to face. Up first we take a look at Ultimate Duck Hunting, the ridiculous new game that Wal-Mart shoppers everywhere can't get enough of. And we don't stop there; watch as we try to get over the horror that is KONG. Oh, and then we have Crack Down ... no, not the 2007 Microsoft game, but rather the old school Sega title. And you can't forget about Mutation Nation, which is where we found our new favorite fighting duo - Horny and MC Hammer. Rounding out the list is the amazingly terrible Chuckie Egg II, a cover so bad that you have to see it to believe it. It's a packed episode full of jokes and observations, so don't waste your time reading this stupid recap, it's time for you to head on over to The Cover Critic Comes Clean while you still have the chance. It may just be an episode of The Cover Critic, but it's easily one of the best episodes we've run so far. And that, my friends, is why we consider The Cover Critic Comes Clean to be the ultimate article of September!
Post-Article Thoughts:
"I like The Cover Critic for one big reason: Whenever I'm running behind and need to get an update up I turn to the Cover Critic and let him do his job. When I started writing this episode I had no idea how funny it would turn out, but the more I looked at the covers the more outlandish it all felt. It always amazes me that things companies will put on their covers, it's as if they think they can put any old thing on the box and it will sell. That may be true with Halo 3, but Chuckie Egg II is a whole other ballgame. This article has clearly connected with the audience, I'm still getting emails with people that talk about Horny and MC Hammer, I hope that one of these days somebody actually makes that game. I feel sorry for The Cover Critic episodes that have to follow this one; it's all downhill from here."
-Cyril Lachel
Why This Article?
It's easy to see what the big games of PAX were. All you need to do is look at the non-stop coverage of Rock Band, Kane & Lynch, Midnight Club 3, and that new Penny Arcade adventure game. But what about all those games that didn't get the massive coverage? Defunct Games is not about to just sit by and watch all of these major websites ignore
these smaller titles. As a courtesy to all of our readers who didn't have a chance to attend this year's Penny Arcade Expo (or those who did but only hung out in the big booths) we've decided to take a look at seven of the best games you probably missed. These games are getting almost no post-PAX coverage and we think that you should be outraged. That's what makes this article so unique; we're here to bring you previews of all the games you missed out hearing about at PAX. And that's the reason why so many people come back to Defunct Games day after day, which is why we're proud to name this the second best article of the month!
Post-Article Thoughts:
"I came away from this year's PAX with mixed feelings. While there's no question that it was a lot of fun, part of me felt bad for some of the companies that attended this year's show. It's tough to be a maker of what you consider to be a stellar game and then be completely overshadowed by Rock Band, Table Tennis or Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Being the kind of guy that I am, I didn't want to see some of the smaller games get completely passed over. After all, these companies paid their money to attend PAX; it would be nice if they could get their money's worth. While I didn't receive a lot of email from viewers about this article, the overwhelming response from the companies was positive. Every company featured in this article (including Bandai Namco, Destineer, Slick Entertainment, Crackpot Entertainment and Sony) appreciated what we were trying to do, and most of them were happy to finally see some media coverage. The most rewarding aspect of this article was that these smaller companies may actually use this guide to better understand what they need to do next year so that they won't make the 2008 forgotten list. It's nice to finally do something worthwhile for a change."
-Cyril Lachel
Why This Article?
For the second year in a row, Defunct Games is here to tell you what we really think of the Penny Arcade Expo's schwag bag. If you've ever been to a convention like this then you will already know what I'm talking about, the schwag bag is that little plastic bag they give you at the door filled with a bunch of useless crap. In this article we decide to dump all the useless crap out and figure out what's worth it and what's not. Of course it's hard to be too critical of something you get
for free, but if we're going to lug this stupid sack around all day the least they can do is put something worthwhile in it. Was this year's schwag bag worth it? Or was it just a repeat of last year's ho-hum bag of crap? Find out now when you watch us dig through the postcards, demos, comic books, and trading cards. It's the third best article of September, and that's really saying something.
Post-Article Thoughts:
"I actually had to talk myself into doing this schwag bag article, I worried that the idea of making a sequel (or worse, an annual article) may seem a bit tacky, but ultimately I decided to go with it. Of course, the real reason this article was written was because I didn't have anything else to post, so it would be stupid to not see this article to its conclusion. This year's schwag bag was a bit better than ones we've seen in the past, but that's not saying a whole lot. This year it was mostly postcards and promotional items, not a lot of game demos or things to eat. Then again, the really awesome schwag was found in the actual exhibition hall. This year the companies had lots of cool trinkets, including a treasure chest, a Bully ball, cool PaRappa the Rapper clothes, and the silliest Nintendo DS holder in the world (let's just put it this way, when it's assembled it looks like a small dog). After looking at all the cool stuff I picked up from the show floor I thought about writing a whole article about real schwag (not the boring stuff we get in the bag), but considering I have fifty pounds of it sitting in a box next to me I'm not sure I have that much time to devote to small toys and Gamecock suckers."
-Cyril Lachel
Why This Article?
With all these lengthy articles to deal with isn't it about time for a mindless game show? This is the newest episode of America's favorite game show, Service Gaming: The Show. It's the show where we ask everyday gamers questions about basic video game facts and it's up to you to decide who got the question right and who got it wrong. In this episode we
find three unique personalities, including the Editor of Gaming Nexus, an old school loving girl woman and some dude who thinks he knows everything there is to know about Nintendo. Will they bring their A game, or are they going home in defeat? Find out now when you play the sixth episode of Service Gaming: The Show, the fourth best article of September!
Post-Article Thoughts:
"I have something of a love/hate relationship with this episode of Service Gaming: The Show. I absolutely love meeting these gamers and asking them a bunch of questions, but the episodes never seem to go as planned. The behind the scenes of this show was just a mess, we were scrambling until the last second to make this look right. I was excited about this episode because I hoped that we would get a mention on Gaming Nexus; after all, we featured the head honcho of the site as the very first gamer. Unfortunately we never did see a link to the article, so the idea of the two sites sharing this moment went up in smoke. I was disappointed (especially given the other links they feature on that site), but it's not the kind of thing that will get me down. This is still a fun game, even if our friends at Gaming Nexus decided to deny us."
-Cyril Lachel
Why This Article?
Look, we all love BioShock. It's an amazing game that begs you to play it more than once. There's nothing better than getting to the bottom of the mysteries of Rapture, searching for Andrew Ryan and ultimately learning who you are. Every inch of the game is fantastic, from the great audio diaries to the subtle ways the story sneaks up on you. BioShock rules! But as great as BioShock is that doesn't mean we need a BioShock 2. This isn't
Halo. The story in BioShock is self-contained, there's really no room for a proper sequel to this amazing adventure game. But that's not what 2K wants to hear; after seeing the overwhelming success of the first BioShock there's no doubt that the publishing house is chomping at the bit to turn this into a multi-game franchise. But we say no, we don't want a BioShock 2. Find out just why we would say such a crazy thing when you read our fifth favorite story of the month, Someone Has Got to Stop BioShock!
Post-Article Thoughts:
"In case you haven't already figured it out, the name of this article is actually a parody of an article we posted several years ago (Somebody Has Got to Stop Michael Madsen). I went back and forth with the name of this article, I wanted something punny, but I just couldn't come up with anything clever. The original name I was using was "It's Time to End the BioShock," but that title just didn't do it for me. I also considered "BioShock to the System," but I decided that the name, while funny, just didn't convey the theme of the article. I figured that most people would disagree with me; I know that BioShock is super popular and most people probably to see it continue in one form or another. But that's not the kind of response I received, almost everybody agreed that the game would be cheapened if somebody decided to continue the series. Unfortunately your emails won't change the fact that 2K sees this as their next big franchise."
-Cyril Lachel
Why This Article?
We knew it was only a matter of time, recently David Jaffe (God of War, Twisted Metal) decided to leave his long-time employer, Sony, and created his own development company. The problem is that David decided to name his company Eat Sleep Play, which should sound familiar to anybody that attended E3 2006. In this episode
of The Freeze Frame we try to figure out just why David Jaffe would do such a thing and whether or not he stole it directly from the famous E3 shirt. Oh, and we fight Atari. It's kind of a messy episode of The Freeze Frame, but it's still worth reading ... despite the fact that this is ranked last on our list of the best shows of September!
Post-Article Thoughts:
"Here's an article I have been waiting to do for weeks now, but the time was just not right for us to post this. The other problem I had was that it wasn't that deep of an article, it's really nothing more than a funny observation that David Jaffe's new company has the same name as those E3 shirts. That's cool and all, but how do I fill up a thousand words with that premise? Thankfully I remembered that Patrick was fighting the evils of Atari with his wristband. To be fair, that wasn't even my joke ... Patrick wouldn't shut up about the wristband the entire time we were at PAX. Sure it was annoying, but he also managed to get it stuck in my head so that I would use it in my article. You're a tricky one, Patrick."
-Cyril Lachel
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