WALL OF TEXT EXPLAINED: What you're looking at is an episode of Countdown w/ Defunct Games published before 2006. As you can tell, something has gone horribly awry. I won't bore you with the technical details, but it has to do with the old layout being incompatible with the new. Eventually, we would like to retrofit these old episodes of Countdown, but that will require a significant amount of time. As Defunct Games has only a limited staff, we aren't sure when we'll have the chance to fix this article. If you absolutely need to know what this article said, get a hold of us on Twitter or leave a message in the comment section below. Sorry for the inconvenience. I hope you will enjoy the episodes created post-2006.

#10 Saying a Game is Exclusive to One System, And then Porting it to Others Dead or Alive 2, ONLY on the Dreamcast. Resident Evil, ONLY on the GameCube. Ridge Racer, ONLY on the PlayStation. Onimusha Warlords, ONLY on the PlayStation 2. Lies lies lies lies lies lies lies! What we have here are companies getting you to buy it on one system, and then changing their minds later and adding extra features and getting you to buy the same game again. It's been going on for years, and will never go away. So, is Final Fantasy really Exclusive to Sony? Maybe like it was to Nintendo ... #9 Paying Full Price for a Directors Cut or Special Edition of a Game you Already Own Hey, I already bought Earthworm Jim and Resident Evil, you mean I have to pay full price to play the game again with a few extras?? That's right! Companies like Capcom, Sega, and many others have made a good profession out of ripping people off. You already bought Super Mario World ten years ago? Well, I bet Nintendo will make another buck when you buy it again for the GameBoy Advance. Now really, how many times can you play the same game? #8 Collections of Games that Don't Include all the Games Street Fighter II springs to mind. For what ever reason it took Capcom three discs to fully bring up the Street Fighter II anthology! The series could have been put easily on one disc, and still had room for the extras. And it didn't even include the original Street Fighter, a game even the TurboGrafx CD had. Lunar, Final Fantasy, and Sonic the Hedgehog are other guilty parties in this charade. #7 Light Gun Games that Give you Three Levels Hey, it's a DVD people, you can do better than 30 minutes of constant game play. Light gun games have a huge following, but companies never spend the time to keep you coming back to them. Outside of a few Party Gun Games, most Sega and Namco shooters can be beaten in a matter of minutes, and usually without must hassle. They might be arcade ports, but the companies could do a little more to keep this niche of gamers happy. #6 Not Paying for the Music It's rare, but sometimes a big company likes to do what they can to whoever is smaller than them. So was the case last November when Microsoft released their Xbox with a collection of songs by a number of popular and indie artists. Problem was that many artists never received and royalties, and are likely never to. Is it giving exposure to struggling artists, or is it ripping them off? You be the judge! #5 Release Dates Okay, let me get this right, WipeOut Fusion was supposed to be out WHEN?? 2000!! And when is it coming out? Fall - Winter of 2002? You must be kidding me, how can you make a two year blunder? It's nice that companies like to predict when their product will debut, but really, if you have no clue, DON'T tell us you do. I'll wait for WipeOut Fusion, but that's just one of the growing list of games delayed with no explanation. #4 Bad Licenses How many people REALLY think *Nsync, Brittany Spears, and Mike Tyson are good choices for games this year? And what about the Simpson's, Dexter's Laboratory, and the PowerPuff Girls? Hey, they might have a following, but their games suck, period. You don't see good licenses, like the Alf game, or the Saturday Night Live first person shooter. Nope, we get Razor Freestyle Scooters. Lord have pity on us. #3 Same Sports Game, Different Year Here's a complaint that never seems to get old, how can a company, say Sega or Acclaim, release the same game, year in and year out with only minor tweaks and improvements, and of course, a roster switch? Why can't they spend more time making the game the best it can be? Better yet, why do we still have to pay full price for the game year in and year out? Electronic Arts, you've got some explainin' to do! #2 Full Motion Video Thought you saw the last of Full Motion Video games? Like we'd ever escape the harsh cuts and bruises the Sega CD inflicted on us. Games like the Bouncer appear to have 95% cinema and 5% game play. While there are few games like this, Full Motion Video is starting to play more and more into games giving us less game play. Konami, Square, and Sega are among the worst perpetrators of this crime; perhaps old wounds never will heal. #1 Promising the a Mansion, Delivering an Igloo If you thought game companies would have learned not to promise things too far in advance by now, then you'd be wrong. Sega promised online support, broadband access, and tons of software to use it, they brought some games, few that offered Broadband support, and it came late in their life. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have all promised online access, but many are starting to wonder if we'll see it in 2002, and worse, how it runs. So far companies haven't had a lot of luck delivering what they've promised, and it might be time for them to stop getting our hopes up. We give them a lot of crap, but the companies deserve some credit. Here are some GOOD things they do ... Five Good Things Game Companies Do for Us They've kept the price of Games to under $50! Games are cheaper now then they have ever been. They provide us with Comfortable and easy to use controls! Excluding the U.S. Xbox Control, which comes from the ninth gate of hell. They really know how to Make a Sequel! How can you resist Metal Gear Solid 2, Grand Theft Auto III, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Twisted Metal Black, and Final Fantasy X? They give us 5.1 and HDTV support! Maybe not on all games, but on the ones they do, it's mighty impressive. Sometimes they ARE Daring! I never thought I would see the day Ka (Mr. Mosquito) came to the U.S., but it looks like the wait is over. My oh my.