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 "I personally could never really care enough about Princess Zelda to spend the 40 hours I needed to spend battling through the forest in order to rescue her." This is really less a bold statement, and more a stupid opinion. Alright, no opinion is stupid, but in this case, I'm willing to make an exception. I mean, c'mon folks, here we have Tom Zito, President of Digital Pictures, telling us that he got bored with Zelda because it wasn't full motion video. Of course, if it was full motion video, the Legend of Zelda would have been an hour and a half, rather than 40 hours. No matter what, the now defunct Digital Pictures was responsible for some of the worst video games in history, so, perhaps you shouldn't take what this guy says too personal. #9 "The First Game to Let You Fly" (NiGHTS into Dreams) Used in the advertising, Sega claimed that NiGHTS into Dreams, a wonderful little 3D game made by the people who made Sonic, was the first game that let you fly. Well, that certainly can't be. Astroids, Superman, Galaga, and Space Harrier all let you fly, a decade earlier. And if they were talking about the first polygonal game to let you fly, well, they would still be wrong. Silpheed and Star Fox allowed gamers to fly without much fanfare years earlier. So it leads us to question, why would Sega make such a bold statement? Perhaps it's half of an advertisement, and Red Bull dropped out at the same minute. Regardless of the campaign, NiGHTS is still a wonderful game, and something everybody should have in their Saturn collection. #8 "Totally Awesome CD Sound Track" If you've heard me whine and bitch about anything, it's the remixing of the Sonic CD music. The Japanese songs were exciting, interesting, sweet, and just about every other emotion you could think of. The Americanized soundtrack was ruined by synth-pop and horribly out of place moments of painful music. This bold statement was made in the advertisement for the U.S. version of Sonic CD, I find it quite presumptuous of them to play as if they have completely forgotten the kick butt original score. Shame on you Sega, shame on you. #7 "It's Time to Learn a Thing or Two About Fun" (Arcus Odyssey) Yup, that's right, it's time to learn about fun, so sit down, shut up, and get ready to play through this painfully tedious adventure game. Watch you start to understand the finer elements of "humor" while you are reading novels worth of text just to learn what you have to do. Marvel as you become a "more fun" person to be around when you finally level your characters up enough to beat one boss, only to have to do the same thing again to beat another boss. See as you learn what it is like to be the class clown when you memorize the horribly forced dialog. That's right gang, just by playing Arcus Odyssey, you too can learn all about fun. #6 "The Leader in REAL Role Playing Games" (FCI) Wow, in "real" role playing games, eh? I guess what Square had been making wth the Final Fantasy series was a FAKE role playing game then? And Dragon Warrior, is that equally bogus? Both of those games outsold FCI's "real" Role Playing Games, such as the Bard's Tale on the N.E.S. Perhaps they should have tried to sell their adventure games based on the merits that they are "pretty good" instead of the only "real" role playing games. #5 "Sega Does What Nintendon't" This may have been clever, but it wasn't very honest. Sega was promoting their 16 bit Genesis by claiming it did was Nintendo did not. But the truth is, Nintendo did a few things Sega wasn't able to muster up. For example, snagging high quality third party companies. Or license really good superstars, like Mike Tyson, and not that freak Michael Jackson. Nintendo was able to sell millions of units a year, Sega had to wait a few years. Of course, Sega did have that 16 bit system out a year and a half earlier ... #4 "The Most Talked About Game of the Year" (BMX XXX) I could be wrong, but since May the most talked about game has been Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Over the last few months Rockstar's 80's epic has received more write ups, more press, and more criticism than any other game this year. ABC, Donahue, even Fox News all criticizing Vice City for teaching our children that "it's okay to kill cops" or something like that. Yeah, BMX XXX got some air time, but nothing like Vice City. Of course, in later press releasing the BMX XXX makers started insulting the critics that gave the game a poor score (which would be most of them). #3 "Jaguar is as powerful, if not more powerful than Saturn. PlayStation is a little bit more - not more technology, byt PlayStation does have more memory than Jaguar." I'll admit, this bold statement is a little hard to read. But to clarify, Sam Tramiel, the president and CEO of Atari Corp (in 1995), is actually saying that the Atari Jaguar is MORE powerful than the Sega Saturn, and just a tad, a smidgen if you will, inferior to the PlayStation. Um, I understand that Sam is just a figurehead and all, but couldn't somebody pass him a side by side list of the specs?? It's fairly obvious to even non-techies that Sam is not telling the truth. Somehow I have a feeling most people had their minds made up about the Jaguar LONG before Sam put his foot in his mouth. #2 "Another Classic From the People who gave you two of the Biggest Blockbusters Ever" This advertisement for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (for the Dreamcast and PlayStation) claims to be yet another game in a line of "classics" by Capcom. So, what "classics" are they referring to? Street Fighter II and Power Stone? No. Darkstalkers and Final Fight? Not even close. Believe it or not, Capcom is referring to Resident Evil and Dino Crisis!! Considering that JoJo is a fighting game, what exactly does Resident Evil and Dino Crisis have to do with anything? Nothing. It's a little like saying, if you like football, you're sure to love Tiger Woods Golf. #1 "Now, I can sit here and tell you today that no matter how great the Saturn is, or PlayStation is, or Ultra 64 is, we will outsell them by an enormous amount with the 32X - Simply because of the price." Of all the bold statements to come down the pipe, this quote by Tom Kalinske, then President and CEO of Sega of America, is perhaps the boldest! Who would make a statement like this? Looking back we see that the Sega 32x is actually one of the worst selling systems of all time. And it's not like history was on Tom's side, either. All throughout this industry, add on peripherals have done poorly. Be it the power pad, Sega CD, or something as simple as the Super Scope, accessories just don't muster up the sales. So why would Tom say something like this? Perhaps he knew what was in store for him. Bad things, man, bad things. Question: What do you consider the most telling quote or slogan? Commercials and people in the public eye have a way of over selling themselves. When was the last time you saw somebody pitching a movie on Letterman they thought sucked? "That's right Dave, my new movie is utter crap, you shouldn't go and see it". Well, sometimes you have to wonder what they were thinking. Who came up with the European PlayStation 2 slogan "the Third Place"? After all, the PlayStation 2 has never been in third place, that honor would go to the Xbox or GameCube (depending on what month or week you look). The commercials were even stranger, but it's the quote that gets me every time. Weird stuff, folks.