Jobs: First Shift

There aren't many places on Earth where the sound of minigun fire is considered blasé, but the people of Domino City had heard stranger sounds before. In fact, the battle in the streets at first seemed like one of the many that had occurred there in the past few years, leading to an unfortunate situation where a crowd had gathered before the bullets began to fly.

The strangest thing about the duel in the streets wasn't that a ghost was up against an anthropomorphic clock, it was that he seemed to be trying to talk with it at first. The ghost spoke Japanese with a clear American bent, and he seemed to occasionally emphasize pronouncing a word incorrectly as some sort of joke, and the crowd were quick to favor the clock in a cape and his little dragon friend. A few kids in the crowd were busy on their smartphones trying to identify the ghost, as they had never seen it in one of Domino City's street duels before, but before any answers could be found, the ghost pulled out his minigun and began to let the barrels spin.

"This is your last warning Time Wizard", Jumpropeman yelled out, tired of trying to speak the native language to a clock that he wasn't even sure was capable of speech. The Time Spirit didn't need to hear a single word from it to know that, with a name like Time Wizard, it was something that was bound to screw with the stability of time at some point.

The back of Jumpropeman's mind seemed elsewhere as he waited for a response, his eyes traveling to the small dragon that Wizard hovered protectively over. "Huh, that little dragon looks like one of Draco's kids." If anything, that similarity was what was staying him from just mowing down both Wizard and Baby Dragon and heading off with a job easily completed. The clock just keep bobbing through the air though, so with a sigh, Jumpropeman points his gun towards the wizard's face and opens fire.

In a battle between wielders of time, the speed of a bullet is nearly irrelevant. Right before the minigun begins to chew on its ammo, the Wizard's wand was hefted high, and when the gunshots began to ring out, they came with a quick curse from Jumpropeman.

 Time did not slow down or speed up. The common tricks of those who wield time were all to expected, but even Jumpropeman was surprised as a bubble of space around the wizard wide enough to envelope a house suddenly jumped forward in time one thousand years. The road below was now fractured and dusty, streetlights wilted like iron flowers. A few citizens who were too close were suddenly turned to dust, their bodies skipping past death and decay. They would not stay dead, Jumpropeman thought, but it would require some annoying after battle cleanup that he might just relegate to Tut-Tut. The citizens of Domino City were now fleeing in a panic from the fight, recognizing that it was far more real than the holographic battles of their favorite card-based sport. Their screams were hidden from the air only by the minigun's futile efforts to puncture this time bubble the wizard had created, but as bullet quickly became fine powder in the air at the edge of the magical sphere, Jumpropeman wound down his weapon and flew forward to try and enter the localized version of Domino City, 3016.

As soon as Jumpropeman entered the time displacement though, a great grunt of fire came up from below and scorched his entire frontside. Jumpropeman began to spiral down through the flames, unable to right himself as the heat began to singe his ectoplasm. With a small slap, Jumpropeman's body plopped down right on the source of the fire: the nose of an elderly dragon.

What was once a Baby Dragon was now the Thousand Dragon, an old but formidable creature. The fire from its nostrils died down as the ghost slapped into its snout, but an exhale of smoke quickly blew the ghost up and away before the now-ancient creature began to inhale again for another incendiary grunt. The Time Wizard spun and bounced around in the air above its enhanced ally, but the Time Spirit could not focus on his original quarry as the flames once more wrapped around the tiny little ghost.

Jumpropeman's gun was glowing red now, the metal softening in his grip as he's barely able to keep himself from turning to ash. The ghost decides to ditch his weapon for now, twirling around before he hurls the Iron Curtain up towards the Time Wizard. The Wizard was not expecting to be hit, it had fared well so far after all, so when the heated metal smashed into its clock face, it was no longer able to sustain its flight or the time sphere. However, 3016's section of Domino City was now firmly cemented in the present, leaving Jumpropeman still in the fiery breath of the aged dragon.

The Time Wizard hit the ground with a metallic crunch, the Thousand Dragon turning its attention away to make sure no trick was being pulled on it. The creature's mind was a strange mix between a child's and a geezer's, with no life between to hone it well. You could probably pull the "look over there!" trick on it a thousand times without it learning, and right now, its attention was over there, if "there" was where a Time Wizard had landed. With the dragon distracted, Jumpropeman expands slightly outward to get the ash off his body, but he could not grow to be giant after being burned so badly. Looking around for his tossed minigun, the small blue ghost instead takes note of the cracked tarmac beneath him and dives down, grabbing two chunks of broken asphalt and flying towards his opponent.

The Thousand Dragon exhales smoke as it turns back to Jumpropeman, but before it can breath in to ready another blast of fire, Jumpropeman lunges forward with the two black rocks and shoves them down the dragon' nostrils. The beast moans in a mix between a baby's whine and an elder's groan, falling back onto its hind feet as its front claws set to the task of dislodging the obstructions. Jumpropeman allows himself a grin, but as he turns his attention back to the Time Wizard, he hears the sound of the Iron Curtain revving up. The Wizard opens fire with the minigun briefly, the kick of the gun surprising it and causing it to fall back and drop the weapon, but not before a few holes are made in one of the ghost's arms.

"Damn! I really should just use the bells for this kind of shit..." The Time Spirit grabs his wounded arm and lifts it, only to let it flop. He knew editing time with his bells would not work on a fellow wielder of time, but at this point, yearning for his bells was just as common as any curse word for the ghost while on a job that was going poorly. Seeing that the limb is useless for now. Jumpropeman turns immaterial and dives into the ground, the dragon and wizard both losing track of their opponent as they collect themselves.

The clock's fingers drum nervously one his wand. Jumpropeman swims through the ground beneath them unseen, preparing to rise up and pull out some of the clock's gears from the inside, but the Wizard raises his staff again, and the hands on it begin to spin. The Time Spirit is unsure of what will happen next, so he flies up as quickly as he can, but the Time Wizard flies up into the air as it lets the roulette on its wand spin, four skulls and two engines serving as the potential landing spots. The Dragon sees Jumpropeman emerge from the ground and tries to smack him down, its hand passing through the immaterial ghost, but passing through the beast is distracting enough to throw JRM off course.

He's unable to reach the Time Wizard before the roulette stops. The hour and minute hands both land on... an engine. The Time Wizard cheers silently as it looks down at Jumpropeman, waiting for its magic to take effect. The ghost is briefly surrounded by magical energy, and Jumpropeman can feel the air around him turn a thousand years older. But 4016's air dissipated quickly, and Jumpropeman crossed his arms as he looked up at the Time Wizard.

"I'm completely exempt from time man. Your powers can't do jack to me!"

The Time Wizard's facial hands spin wildly and angrily, the Thousand Dragon recognizing that something went wrong and trying to take another swing at JRM. The Time Spirit quickly dives down and pulls up the Iron Curtain, the barrels spinning again as he prepares for a final stand...

RRRRRRRRRIP

Well, it wasn't that loud of a rip, but it certainly felt loud to the Time Wizard and Thousand Dragon. It was actually a quiet rip, one too small compared to the sounds of the gun, wizard, and dragon for Jumpropeman to even notice. It wasn't until the Time Wizard and Thousand Dragon abruptly dissolved in front of him that he realized anything had happened.

The scorched little ghost let himself fall to the ground in relief at first, but when he looked around for the reason the battle ended, he saw his little mummy assistant Tut-Tut approaching with something in his hand.

The second Time Spirit tossed two cards in front of Jumpropeman, both ripped down the center. "I didn't mean to interrupt the fun you were having sir, but I didn't want you wasting anymore of your energy on them. These are singular manifestations of ancient creatures, so we can't really take care of them or their time shenanigans without finding every card like these two and disposing of them."

Jumpropeman sits up and sighs, running his good arm across the two torn cards. "Thanks for the save I guess. Just wish I knew that before I went in."

"You can do the research beforehand you know..."

"That's the boring part though! ...Ugh, you're right, I know. Was just getting lazy on it again. Procedures, procedures... So, did you show up here just to save my bacon?"

"Unfortunately no. I found a special anomaly that I thought you should see before I purge it."

The ghost shoots up into the air quickly, enough to startle the mummified dodo. The shock was born more of his concern for Jumpropeman moving so quickly in his injured state than the suddenness though.

"Nice!" Jumpropeman exclaimed. "Well, guess I shouldn't say that before I see it, but hey, it's gotta be something good if you're calling me in, right?"

Tut-Tut averted his eyes from his superior, "I'm... not quite sure I would say that, Mr. Jumpropeman..."

----------------------------------------------------

The two Time Spirits reappeared far away from Domino City, Jumpropeman in far better condition than what the universe considered a mere second ago in the timeline. Jumpropeman didn't look good though, if only because he was wearing his disappointment quite clearly when he saw what Tut-Tut wanted to show him.

"A shed?" were the only two words the ghost had for it. A small shed sat in front of them... although it was certainly not meant to be small. The tiny shack was barely held together, its metals rusty and withered while its wood had long since become dust on its floor. It was unclear what it once housed, as the floor was now only home to the remains of the roof. It was clearly some other color once upon a time, but right now it wore a sickening white and lifeless brown on what pieces remained. It was almost a miracle JRM could identify it so easily.

The ghost prepares to hover over and get a closer look, perhaps hoping for something more interesting in what remained of its mess, but Tut-Tut delicately puts an arm in front of his employer. "Sorry sir... you don't want to get too close."

"Why?"

The question did not wait for words to be answered. The shed's pieces begin to knit themselves back together in a flash, color fading back into the structure as dust becomes wood and suddenly, a very plain and uninteresting shed was now sitting in front of the two.

Jumpropeman let out a long whistle, "Well, that is interesting... in a way."

"From what I can tell," Tut-Tut started, "the shed was abruptly pushed forward a thousand years in time and was now pulled back-"

"Oh great, is the Time Wizard here too?"

"No! I mean, no, not at all."

"Huh, so it's just a coincidence that time stuff favors the thousand year jump today."

"I-I guess... But, it's not like the Wizard's power at all! It seems this abnormality is caused by something called entropy."

"Oh great," Jumpropeman wished he could roll his eyes, "I thought we took care of Air. Is she really mucking about with sheds?"

"I'm pretty sure it wasn't her..."

"Well, she's the only one who calls this thing 'entropy' as far as I know. I sometimes wonder if kids with powers these days even bother to look up the fancy words they place on their powers..."

"...to be fair sir, entropy is probably just a word to encapsulate a difficult to describe ability. We can't really judge them for trying to qualify it when we use names like 'the Fabrics of Time'."

"Good point." Jumpropeman's eyes remained on the shed, but once again he let his mind wander, this time off into a place where he might just know what caused this abnormality... but soon he found a much more interesting thought. "SO! Can we get rid of it now?"

"I suppose... I take it you don't want to just excise it from time?" Tut-Tut asked hopefully.

"Of course not! Let's kill multiple thousand year old birds with one stone!"

Time did not stop, but a second later, Jumpropeman and Tut-Tut were standing far away from the shed, an enormous pile of cards spilling out the side of the entropy-afflicted structure. All around it where Time Wizards and Thousand Dragons, the Wizards waving their wands at the shed in what looked like a weird dance.

"DRAGONS AT THE READY!" Jumpropeman yelled, the dragons all grunting or puffing smoke in response.

"LET'S BURN THIS PLACE TO THE GROUND!" And with that, fire roared out from the dragons, enveloping the shed, the cards, and many Time Wizards with it. Some of the clocks were quick enough to fly out of the way of the incoming fire, and some of the Thousand Dragons felt slow in their old age and hadn't even mustered the strength to lend their breath to the inferno, but soon the cards and shed were overwhelmed by the intensity of the attack, and as the cards burnt in the slowly dying shack, Time Wizards and Thousand Dragons began to pop and dissolve all throughout the small area. Tut-Tut watched calmly, but Jumpropeman laughed as the creature who gave him so much trouble earlier that day were now killing themselves by his command. The rogue versions of these monsters he fought earlier were a major pain in his ghostly ass, but now that he had summoned them from their cards, he could make them do whatever he liked...

When the fires died down, there was nothing left of the shed or the army called to destroy it but the scorch marks on the dirt.

"I'll get to cleaning up the temporal mess soon-" Tut-Tut said once Jumpropeman had calmed down, but as he looked at his fellow Time Spirit, he found his ear listening to a phone's speaker instead of him. The dodo felt cowed and stepped back, letting the ghost make his phone call.

"Hello?"

"Hi sweety~ I've just made quite a mess here Marina, and I couldn't help but think of you! Think you can send some guys to help clean it up?"

Tut-Tut had no trouble hearing his boss's daughter let out a long, exasperated sigh.

Bubsy 3D: The Disaster Report, and Technically a Review too

 Bubsy 3D is infamous for entering the world of 3D platformers with all the grace of an avalanche, although this seems to be implying that Bubsy was somehow hurt by the transfer into a new dimension, when really his already heavy burden of awfulness was only increased by crossing into a world that games in general were not ready to travel into. The PS1/N64 era was not a pretty one, and at its beginning, most everyone, even Mario and other people praised for entering it cleanly, looked like low quality bootleg versions of their 2D selves. Blocky polygons stacked on top of each other was the norm then, and at best you could hope for a model that looked like the first wave of Star Wars toys that were basically humanoid plastic painted to look recognizable. Time has made us kinder to this generation, it has made us forget that the camera was suddenly something that needed controlled that was often wrangled with about the same control one might have it one tried to corral hippos. It is no coincidence though that while nostalgic throwbacks to 8, 16, and other bits can go over well, a PS1 era graphic style in a modern game is usually a sign of incompetence rather than a tribute to an era that was really full of first steps into an unfamiliar world.

You may think this is some defense of Bubsy 3D, that I'm being an apologist and forgiving it for this terrible transfer into the third dimension. I merely wanted to give you some context that, for a game made in an era where a certain level of patience and understanding is required...

Bubsy 3D is still absolute utter garbage with no excuse for how bad it turned out.

Even if Bubsy 3D had the benefit of coming after the 3D Platformer genre was more solidified, it commits too many sins to have ever been a good game, despite the assurances of people who worked on it. My recent experience 100% the game on the PS1 has not been a pretty one, and as a bad game aficionado, even I was impressed with how bad the game ended up being. Before we begin though, its worth pointing out that the main character's bad personality and the uninspired polygonal landscapes, the go-to criticism of this game a la Superman 64's ring levels, are not even what makes this game as terrible as it is. Those criticisms are what a passerby may peg Bubsy 3D as, but once you get your fingers deep into this poor excuse for entertainment, you will feel what truly made Bubsy 3D the maligned monstrosity its known as today.

Before I press into the true analysis, I should note a difference I have spotted between the PS1 physical copy and emulated versions I've watched on Youtube. Mainly... Bubsy 3D looks much nicer on an emulator, with brighter colors, less rigid polygons, and greater draw distance. To truly see the beast this Bobcat truly is, the unemulated version was a must.

GAMEPLAY

Gamers seem pretty willing to forgive a bad story, bad graphics, and other such failings as long as the gameplay is fun and engaging. Rest assured, Bubsy 3D does not deliver on that front. Every detail placed on top of this game's core structure is simply pushing Bubsy 3D deeper into a mire.

Let us begin with the fact that, for a platformer, the platforming is pretty bad. Bubsy 3D controls like a tank. Now, tank controls were a practical solution to a problem in real life. We had giant guns attached to huge hunks of metal that we wanted to move around. Wheels could not handle the recoil or terrain that we wanted them to move on, so treads were implemented, and since treads can't exactly have front-wheel drive, the treads can be individually controlled so that turns can be made. Tanks do not turn fluidly, and games like Resident Evil, struggling in their own battle against the fledgling game dimension of depth, used them to accommodate their own gun-carrying devices. Also known as characters. Bubsy, however, is in a game where movement is the gameplay. Needing to come to a stop to turn Bubsy is excruciating, especially when there are enemies that open fire with well-aimed attacks. Turning while running does not create a small circle, but a wide berth, one that Bubsy often does not have enough room to execute, and even he will probably have to come to a stop to let himself adjust to his new angle.

Surprisingly, the camera is kind in Bubsy 3D, in that it's predictable. You have no control over it and when you jump it becomes a top down view, but it respects object boundaries and although Bubsy himself is difficult to position, your view adjusts consistently. Sure there are many things you won't see because of it, and the draw distance is poor if we're using generous terms, but the tolerable camera is probably the only thing that makes this game palatable. If it was off on its own adventure, Bubsy 3D might be downright unplayable.

Bubsy's tank controls are thankfully nonexistent when he jumps, and oftentimes he's a far easier beast to control when he's in the air. Bubsy can suddenly move freely and rather quickly on the horizontal plane, although after you jump you can't really switch into a glide easily. Yes,  the bobcat can glide, for no reason. Most of the time Bubsy's standard jump is actually the better option, as gliding causes you to fall rather quickly and there are few gaps that are longer than the generic jump. Gliding is best as a means of skipping stuff or riding propellers, and since it must be pressed first rather than the jump button to do, it often leads to deadly and painful commitments.

The last real gameplay mechanic is Bubsy's means of self-defense. Bubsy can jump on most enemies, and it is almost always the best option to damage them, but there are also little items scattered liberally throughout every level called atoms. Bubsy can pick up atoms like coins in Mario or bananas in Donkey Kong Country, and if they total up to enough, he gets small bonuses. Seems simple... except the atoms are also an attack. If Bubsy approaches an atom with all the caution of someone trying to pet a wild deer, he can pick it up and fire it forward in a straight line. However, if you do not hit an enemy or breakable wall with it, it will bounce back and hit Bubsy. And if you hold it too long it hurts Bubsy. And the aiming is down with Bubsy's slow tank control spinning. So for the most part, its best used never, and can rarely be useful in sniping far off enemies... but sometimes, to get the games important collectible (there are two rockets in every level), Bubsy must fire an atom into an offcolor wall. First of all, the generic landscapes make the offcolor walls difficult to spot, and by the time you do notice them, you've probably collected the atoms that you were meant to fire at it. See, since Bubsy can only fire atoms horizontally, only some atoms line up with these walls, and if you mess up and pick up the atom, or fire it not at the specific part of the wall it wants you to hit, you will have to replay the level, since atoms do not respawn.

Some levels are "generous" and give you a powerup where Bubsy holds 10 atoms in reserve that he can fire anytime... provided he doesn't die. If he dies, he loses the powerup, and so many levels with that powerup actually require it to get into the area a Rocket is hidden in, as no atoms will be placed near the offcolor wall. Like the earlier comparison I made, the atoms are placed much like coins in a Mario game, but their added utility makes these positions annoying, and the 10 atoms power up too rare and fickle to depend on.

So, those are the basics. Bubsy must hop, shoot, and poorly turn around in a world full of platforms, sloped hills that he can glide up if he's persistent enough and obstinate enough, and enemies who will catch Bubsy unawares. Bubsy can usually avoid being shot at by enemies that are offscreen, but the moment he sees them they fire with deadly accuracy, and the poor controls make it easy to get pegged if you're not always on guard. The levels Bubsy travels through are strange. They are sparsely designed, consisting of spires and slopes and floating grey rectangles. What's a platforming game without platforms after all. There are small attempts at making things I assume are trees, and Bubsy adds a weird noxious green goop that is instantly lethal to the floors of some levels. Also, a checkerboard pattern on any surface is an indication that it will teleport you, and its often found in areas where you must do some jumping challenges to get rockets. The composition is not the strangest part though. These 3D, save a few early levels, are often wide open areas (to the point a level called Clawstrophobic is probably the least claustrophobic level in the game with its open spaces) but they have a strange linearity to them that isn't enforced by the level's actual design. Instead, to progress you must follow floating arrows, as the levels are often bland in appearance and easy to get lost in otherwise, especially with things teleporting you around and upper platforms twisting you around. Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie made their levels hubs for multiple adventures to take place in, and exploring a level unearthed new tasks to do in it. Bubsy 3D's only goals are to get to the end of the level and find the rockets along the way if you're masochistic. If not for the arrows guiding you, I can assure you many levels would take twice as long to finish, and even some of the more linear levels often have backtracking after branching off to a dead-end path to flip a switch.

Then there are water levels. Thankfully mostly linear, there are 3 in the whole game, and they control... okay. Problem is, there is an oxygen meter. It's mostly forgiving, and there are oxygen tanks scattered around the place that respawn if you're far enough from them. The issue arises that since you can't jump on enemies underwater... you're giving a charge attack. An imprecise charge attack that burns through oxygen at an alarming rate. If you run out of oxygen in this level, its because of failed charges. The underwater levels are poorly designed, with platforms floating about as if it was a regular level that they simply submerged later, but still not structurally sound enough to be played without the water. There are fish globe lanterns on many platforms that have a fish texture placed on each side so poorly that you can see the fish bowl from multiple angles and make it seem like they're TVs with multiple screens instead. Despite the freedom a water level usually allows, swimming too high or going over areas they don't want you to go to will cause a ring of white triangles to descend from the heavens and immobilize you and push you back to the level, often in the path of the annoying underwater enemies. Land levels are merciful in that if an enemy isn't onscreen, it usually can't shoot at you. Underwater, Dogfish and Starfish will home in and strike you from offscreen, and with no jump, dodging is usually up to luck against these unseens attackers. There are also little seaweed enemies that make bubbles that if you get caught in, will carry you up, up, up to the surface super slowly and then damage you, and trying to run off can often get you caught in a different bubble from a seaweed nearby or caught by the white triangles.

I suppose the last real shift in gameplay comes in the games two puzzles. Oh, I don't mean there are only two puzzles, I mean there are only two breeds of them repeated constantly throughout the course of the game. The more forgiving and tolerable one involves finding a pillar made of the four alien enemies found throughout the game. These aliens are benign and are red, green, blue, and yellow, and depending on how they are stacked, you must hit some switches in an order to match their totem pole.  An uninteresting and unengaging puzzle, but busywork puzzles like this are found in the best of games. The annoying one is a game of Simon with an alien who will stomp on his platform to gradually reveal the color pattern with one new color added each runthrough. Thing is, to reply to his pattern, you must jump between four colored platforms above a drop. The drop is usually safe, but even though its somewhat easy to control yourself while jumping, trying to hop between the four platforms reveals how deviously spaced they are. You may be tempted to backpedal to the edge of a platform, but if you press back on the control stick, sometimes Bubsy does a short hop backwards, and that hop will trigger the platform you're standing on again. One error and you must restart the game of Simon, and sometimes, seemingly randomly, the first platform the alien hits, even if you match it with the one you hit, counts as wrong and you start again. Slow, boring, and poorly controlled... come to think of it, it's the perfect puzzle for a game like Bubsy 3D.

Phew! So that's the bulk of Bubsy's problems from a technical standpoint. Poor gameplay design in a world that you aren't really designed to handle, enemies that ignore your limitations and "puzzles" that engage your mind as much as a stoplight would. Before we leave the subject, let's talk about...

LEVELS, ENEMIES, AND BOSSES

 Before we begin, I suppose I should mention that the alien enemies in this game are called Woolies. This is important because nearly every level in this game is a pun or reference with either the Woolies name shoved in there, a cat-related joke, or on one rare occasion, the lightning bolt Zzotz enemy gets its name stretched into the title "Zzotz Nice". Like Not Nice, I guess, is the joke, supposedly. The levels themselves, surprisingly, are all rather unique, in as much as they have different feels to them despite being rearranged assets. I certainly couldn't tie names to levels though  as the names never have anything to do with the level unless they are a boss level. One level, called Bright Light Big Woolies, does not seem to make sense as a joke or as a level name. The music isn't too bad, and much like the original 2D Platformer Bubsy games and Bad Rats, you'll eventually acquire a Stockholm Syndrome level of affection for some of it. Some of it is peppered with weird sounds that aren't quite music, like one similar to the Xbox Achievement boop. Enemies make weird sound effects as well, with one seeming to rip its noises straight from the future game Banjo-Kazooie, with a stretch and chomp noise that must come from some same no-license sound file group.

It is a marvel that the game manages to make 24 levels feel both unique and forgettable. If you have no interest in getting the Rockets that are required to get the 100% ending, some can be completed in mere minutes, while most can carry on for half an hour of bumbling and death before you plumb everything the level has to offer. Some levels even offer multiple paths that lead back on themselves, giving you further paths to run down to find nothing of use or note.

The main enemy force are Woolies, who throw rocks at you and can be dispensed with jumps. Later upgraded Woolies shoot well aimed laser beams that pass through solid objects, and who Bubsy seems to think is literally Cyclops from Marvel as he calls him an X-Man/Ex-Man when he kills them and directly calls that an enemy a mutant. The earlier mentioned creatures with Banjo-Kazooie noises are these slime creatures that travel across the ground and can only be killed with atoms, so basically they're invincible since if you stand still long enough to shoot them, they'll get you. There are creatures with targets that if you get near will place the target on you and pretty much get a free hit unless you hop around frantically and get lucky. There are hummingbirds that shoot green rings at you and are hard to hit as they flit around erratically. Underwater enemies were earlier mentioned, and Woolies come in land, water, and flying variants. The Zzotz, however, is an electric creature that, if you touch, is an instant kill.

And boy does Bubsy 3D love instant kills. Running off the edge of a platform above open air will cause Bubsy to look down like Wile E. Coyote, wave at the camera, and then die, even if Bubsy had the momentum to run off that platform to the next one. No, you must jump it properly or die. Water in any land level is an instant kill as well, where even if your foot touches the corner of it and you jump to safety, Bubsy will play his drowning death animation. Most water is poorly separated from land with some safe flat blue textured ground between the mainland and water, and the water is really only discernible by some bubbles breaking up the sea of blue. These bubbles, mind you, are on a water texture that does not match the surrounding water color. It's best to avoid blue ground at all costs really.

There are four bosses in Bubsy 3D, two of which you don't seem to actually kill as they appear in the ending cutscene just fine. The first is Woolie Bully, who for some reason, despite that name, is a small yellow Woolie with glasses like a nerd and is shown to be a scientist. He hovers above you on a disco floor shooting down glowing shots that, after hitting the ground, create a danger area that you'll get hurt if you stand in. To get up on the Bully's dancefloor, you must somehow intuit the random idea that Bubsy can glide over the danger area and receive a boost up into the air so he can jump on the Bully's head. I only knew to do this thanks to hearing about how this makes no sense in other criticisms of this game. Boss 2 is a Mammoth in a level called Mortal Bobkat, where the idea is to make him charge at you and slip so you can jump on his rump. Thing is, there are electric fences keeping you two too close together, and you often run into them when you are running around as they are hidden offscreen. Once you get a feel for the arena though, then you have to deal with the mammoth. Sometimes bananas are thrown in from offscreen that the Mammoth can slip on, but he seems to slip regardless of there being a banana in his path eventually. When he falls trunk over rump, you need to pound down on his butt before he flips back up, but the window is imprecise, and you can often take damage when you seemed to have a clear shot on his behind.

The final two bosses are found in the final level, and that level is certainly a gauntlet. Invincible turrets line the hallways you must take to the first boss who will constantly open fire on you, so you basically have to jump around and hope to make it through, and since like I mentioned earlier, jumping changes the camera to a top-down perspective, you will have no clue of the way forward while hopping for your life. This level has a particularly egregious case of an offcolor wall hiding a rocket, as there is only one atom in the hallway that has that wall, you have to grab it while avoiding the turrets, and this is the final level. On a new life you get 4 hits before dying, but thanks to checkpoints you can brute force a lot of things with extra lives you stock up on. Making it to that wall and successfully breaking it are a task and a half, but there is a glitch with most slopes where if Bubsy jumps onto it while facing off in a perpendicular direction, he can sometimes jump up it. One early level seems to require it to get a rocket, and the final level is much easier when you can get by a lot of the turret maze with that trick.

Once you brave that gauntlet you reach the easiest boss in the game, and an actual fun one too! There are a bunch of trees scattered around and a giant two headed boss whose stomps make rocks fall from an invisible ceiling. Jump from tree to tree to stomp on the boss, where it will strangely reset you to a different position in the air after doing so. To cheese the boss you can just hold forward to land on it again and again, but even without that cheat the rocks are easy to dodge and the platforming challenge decent. In an otherwise hard level, its a breath of fresh air. The path ahead is another maze to hop through, and then one of those totem-pole-switch-order puzzles but with these small yellow Woolies who seem basically impossible to avoid completely. You will be hit, and you must accept that. There is a checkpoint nearby so that you can die while doing it, and then... the final boss. First off all there is a propeller you need to use to glide over to their arena, and since gliding sucks, you sometimes touch the propeller and take a hit before even fighting the boss. Then, the boss, is Polly and Esther, two Woolies you can't jump on who shoot better versions of the beams the Cyclops enemies shot. They teleport around hassling you, and to hurt them you need to hit a switch to make atoms available for a limited time, which you must then grab. Grabbing the atom and aiming it is the hardest part as, previously mentioned, Bubsy doesn't really turn. Standing in place to turn will leave you vulnerable to the beams, and running has too wide a berth. Jumping towards the atom leads to picking it up, but if you can grab it, there is mercy invincibility until you fire it. However, since there are two bosses firing at you, oftentimes after shooting one, the other will peg you the instant you are vulnerable again. Thankfully, if you kill one and then die, the one you killed stays dead unless you get a game over. Kill both and the game abruptly cuts to the end cutscene the moment you touch the rocket they drop.

So, we're pretty far in to tearing apart why Bubsy 3D is a bad game. Bad levels, controls, enemies... you might ask yourself... what else could have possibly gone wrong?

Oh, that's right.

BUBSY, AND THE GAME'S "HUMOR"

This strange Escape From L.A. reference, a flash in the pan sequel to the actually memorable Escape from New York, has nothing to do with the level, rest assured, but it embodies what most people seem to think is the biggest problem with Bubsy Bobcat and his series of games.

And I... can't agree. Yes, the humor is terrible, the references often too obscure or just planted wholesale as if that was a joke. Bubsy has an annoying voice and the game slams you with statement after statement from his shrieking maw in the tutorial level, but as you play Bubsy 3D... you need his terrible humor to survive. The gameplay is so bad that when Bubsy has decided to keep his yap shut, you can only focus on how bad the game is. But then Bubsy chimes in with "KEEP YOUR MOTOR RUNNING" in his most annoying voice as you hop in an on-rails rocket segment and you suddenly are pulled out of the terrible deed you have invested your time in and get to hate Bubsy and enjoy how bad he is. If not for the terrible attempt at creating a likable mascot, this game would be depressingly bad, but Bubsy's poor attempts at humor will give you a focus for all the hate building up in you. When he yells out a masturbatory self-congratulatory "Beauty and Brains, the perfect combination!" after stomping on an enemy, you are able to sit back and say "I hate you Bubsy" instead of thinking on the frustrating path that brought you to that one-liner.

Besides Bubsy's one-liners, the levels themselves contain no humor. They are places to act upon, obstacle courses that make Mario look like a fleshed out and realistic environment. Only one land level archetype exists besides the generic color swaps, and that's a poor attempt to splash cityscapes on the polygons that don't even look like the buildings they are textured as. Before the level, I suppose you can say the title cards are a joke, although none really land and most often they are only funny for looking terrible. When Bubsy dies, there is a cutscene that abruptly jumps in to show various ways he can suffer. If Bubsy stands still for too long the game freezes for a bit and then plays what looks like the gameover screen but is actually a poorly implemented idle animation. Incidentally, Bubsy's attempts at humor seem to lead to a lot of glitches. Pausing during his one-liners can sometimes lead to Bubsy repeating lines over and over, running through the sound test to sound even outside the generic "attacked an enemy" or "picked up extra life" noises. One time the game just froze on the start of one of Bubsy's deaths before I had ever died, leaving me stranded with this image of Bubsy standing still in a dark abyss with only a spotlight shining on him. I never did play a bonus game thanks to a glitch freezing the game if I tried. From what I've seen it doesn't look funny or fun, just a generic way to get lives after spending way too much effort collecting 150 atoms in the previous level.

Bubsy 3D also has a post-level cutscene where they show a slapstick scene where Bubsy suffers in a way completely unrelated to the level. Bubsy is merciful in one way though: this scene shows a password that you can enter, but the game also has save files. Many, many save files. At least 15 from what I recall, and you aren't punished for using a password and saving your file to the memory card, a necessity since my game kept freezing before the bonus game. These cutscenes, however, are not merciful, as they tell the same tired and unfunny jokes to you. Usually Bubsy tries to do something Looney Tunes-esque and is hurt for doing so, including the painting-a-door-on-a-wall gag and trying to go through it, only for his enemy to succeed at it while he fails. Most are forgettable, but near the end of the game, the end level cutscenes begin to use two set ups repeatedly. In one, Bubsy is in a futuristic race with a Woolie. They all start the same, but after the race begins, Bubsy encounters something like a brick wall that makes him lose.  There are at least four of these, and Bubsy finally wins on only to fly over the finish line and to the door to the final level. The other joke formula you'll see over and over doesn't even make sense. A bunch of Woolies are floating around like they are driving invisible cars, and Bubsy tries to climb into one of the invisible cars that a Woolie is driving. The first time the joke is told, Bubsy just falls through after a second of floating, then gets run over by that same invisible car. The next time he succeeds in climbing in, only for the Woolie to reveal its never-before-seen lightning powers to zap him out and over the horizon. The next one involves Bubsy handing the driver a bomb and blasting him away, driving away with the pilfered invisible car.

Like I said, Bubsy 3D isn't funny, but the poor jokes are interesting and help distract your from the torturous gameplay.

CONCLUSION

 Bubsy 3D is somehow the fourth game in the series, but its no surprise it killed it off. The other Bubsy games were buoyed by passable gameplay and marketing that made Bubsy seem more tolerable than he would prove to be. Children have a level of patience for bad games as they don't know better and they have a bit of a sunk cost fallacy in that they feel they must enjoy every game they get as they get very few. Bubsy 3D, however, would be a monumental task to enjoy. Playing it normally will prove frustrating as you reach later levels, and trying to get 100% will only lead frustration starting from the get-go. Bubsy 3D meanders about and requires many leaps in logic to complete, and there is no real reward.

In the beginning of the game, Woolies are meeting up to discuss their enemy Bubsy finding their home planet, which he interrupts by bounding in and delivering a string of unrelated one-liners and catch phrases, including his own spin on the Wrong Turn At Albuquerque line he pilfered from Bugs Bunny ("I knew I should have taken that left turn at Uranus! Was it something I said? WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!" ...all said in one breath). At the end of the game, if you get 100%, Bubsy escapes in a rocket only for "the stored atom capacity he built up in his fur" (which, for some reason, this phrase makes the villain army crack up at least four times, grinding the cutscene to a halt for way too long) to cause his rocket to go backwards in time, taking him to the Dark Ages, to which Bubsy says "woah, how did I end up in Triassic Park?" The remaining Woolies seem to have no obstacle in going to Earth by their own evaluation now to steal Earth's wool (I think, I could barely believe what I was hearing), and that's the end of the series.

Even though I said the game's personality is the only thing keeping it afloat, that is by no means me saying its good. The game or the personality it has. I've played many, many bad games. Cory in the House is kind of typical licensed game fare in its problems. E.T. on the Atari can be adapted to with time and patience and knowledge. Bad Rats just requires you to repeat levels with the same solution until it works. Shannon Tweed's Attack of the Groupies requires you to pay attention more than you want to.

But Bubsy 3D... It's special. I don't know if its the worst game I've ever played, but it's definitely up there. Bubsy himself represents a sort of hubris, the idea that one can create an interesting character by slamming together things that worked for other characters. The game itself shows a stubbornness to try and design a 3D open level like a 2D linear one, and the gameplay shows a lack of motivation and creativity on the part of the game designers. Does Bubsy 3D deserve its infamy? Sure. But much like Superman 64, its important to look beyond the obvious criticisms. Superman 64 sucks because carrying objects and flying as the game requires you to can cause you fall through the floor. It sucks because you can run out of the power you need to beat the game due to poor detection of its use.

And Bubsy 3D? It's not just a wisecracking bobcat in a bland polygonal terrain. It's so much more. And oh god do I wish its only problems were the protagonist and environmental design.

Bye bye, Bubsy. You won't be missed.

Top 13 Blandest Video Games

I've certainly made no secret of my large video game collection in the past, and as it continues to grow, I feel compelled to do something more with it than just play the games for my own enjoyment. Naturally, a few obvious ideas came to mind, like making a list of the best games I've ever played (which seems too hard to decide on save a select few at the very top) or perhaps a list of the worst games I've ever played. However, with the idea of the worst video games I've ever played comes the fact that I actually enjoy playing bad games. A bad game can be enjoyed ironically or made fun of, and there are entire series like the Angry Video Game Nerd built on the back of making fun of how bad some games are.

So that is where the idea for this list came from. Since I couldn't decide on the best games and felt I couldn't make a truly objective bad games list due to my enjoyment of them, I instead settled on making a list of some games that are so uninteresting, so absolutely dull that you can't possibly eke any sort of enjoyment out of them, whether it be genuine or ironic. Yahtzee recently made a similar list of blandest games in his web show, and although it certainly inspired the use of the word Blandest, the idea was already thought up before the synchronicity was noticed.

These are the games I may one day beat, but I probably won't enjoy doing so. These are the games that are so average they won't harm you to play, but won't entertain you either. Many of these games I never got too far in, but a game should not rely on your goodwill to play it far enough in to hopefully find what might be a good part. A painfully boring start rarely makes a possibly good end worth reaching. Although some day I may do something grander with my game collection, for now, allow me to share with you the 13 games that just aren't worth anyone's time or money.

And here.... we go!

13: Magical Starsign
System: Nintendo DS
Genre: JRPG
The first game on this list holds a special place in my heart as being the first game to truly break my trust in Nintendo. For a long time, simply being published by Nintendo meant, in my eyes, that the game was guaranteed to be of a certain level of quality, and even now I usually trust them more as a publisher than other companies. However, this bog-standard DS JRPG took that trust and tainted it forever.

To be honest, Magical Starsign is not an entirely offensive game, although the art style is rather ugly in certain parts (just look at those two main characters on the boxart and their weird abs and faces), and of all the games that made it on this list, I am most willing to believe this game may "get better" somewhere down the road, but Magical Starsign makes a terrible mistake early on: for the tutorial it gives you all the characters and abilities that it will soon strip away and slowly give back to you over the course of the game. Not only is this bad form for a tutorial, as gameplay elements should be taught when relevant instead of hoping you remember them when they come up down the road, but it also makes the early game feel too simple while at once having a weird undercurrent of needless complexity. Games like Star Ocean: The First Departure can blindside you with too much info early on that makes it hard to figure it out later when its actually usable, but Magical Starsign dumps it on your head and then removes it, which can work in simple platformers or metroidvanias, but in a JRPG it just makes the already monotonous battle system feel even worse when you are constantly working with so much less than you were given to see at the start.

All in all though, it really is just a bog-standard JRPG whose few innovations are just not interesting enough to save it. And that isn't even me dissing basic JRPG gameplay, as I was delighted to find Glory of Heracles is a great yet simple handheld JRPG. However, in Magical Starsign, a giant scorpion boss early on can be trounced no sweat with basic attacks, making both the boss and your extra abilities seem underwhelming. I played a bit into the game, enough to realize how slowly I'd be getting my party back. One day I may just force myself to beat it, but as it stands, its just an RPG with an uninteresting story and gameplay. Maybe it was meant for a younger audience based on the art style and all, but there are already so many better RPGs for children that don't have weird mechanics based on how the planets are aligned.

Fun Fact: Magical Starsign became a personal nickname of mine for a move Algol uses in Soul Calibur 4 and onward. He has a move that causes him to float up into the air with his arms crossed and briefly blink out of existence. I have tried many times to find out what the move is useful for and turned up nothing, so I one day called the move "Magical Starsign", as I felt it was something that looked promising and I had the right to believe would be good, but I just could not find anything appealing about it.

Don't let Mokka's awesome design fool you: this game ain't worth your time. In fact, many other characters have pretty decent designs. But they're in a game that really doesn't deserve them.

12: Pac-Man World
System: Playstation
Genre: 3-D Platformer

There's a soft spot in my heart for the old retro icons who have never successfully made the jump away from the initial game that made them famous. Pretty much any Frogger game besides the original is hilarious in its attempts to turn a frog crossing the road into an adventure hero, and ol' Pac-Man here has also struggled to make his mark anywhere but a maze. Certainly, many of Pac-Man's games could probably make a worst games list, with the infamous Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures being a definite candidate, but even that game has hilarious moments like Pac-Man seemingly drunk on milk. You may have to guide him around like a mix between a Lemming and a Sim in that game, but at least it was bad enough to be interesting.

Pac-Man World however came with the promise that it wasn't all that bad. Supposedly it was a decent jump for the yellow pellet muncher into 3D.

It's not.

In fact, despite the genre being a 3-D platformer, I feel like Pac-Man World embodies the idea behind a 2.5D game better than supposed genre members like Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. In that Kirby game, the models and world are 3-D but your movement is restricted to a 2D plane. In Pac-Man World however, the platformer is still from left to right, but you can move into and out of the background, not that its every really populated with much interesting for you to interact with and more often than not just makes you miss jumps or hit obstacles because of the need to align yourself  properly in the flat 3D plane.

Pac-Man World really does play like a 2D platformer for the most part, with interspersed maze sections because it's Pac-Man. There are a wide selection of collectibles that make the already hard-to-enjoy game more tiresome if you wish to collect them, leading to backtracking and mucking about for rewards that just can't be worth it.

Perhaps the sequels were better as I've seen they actually become proper 3D platformers, but Pac-Man World, the original, is just another failed attempt by Pac-Man to find a hold outside of gobbling dots in mazes.

11: Conker's Pocket Tales
System: Game Boy/ Game Boy Color
Genre: Top-Down Adventure

Many a year ago, I managed to find a playable demo on a Gameboy at I think Toys R' Us that had Conker's Pocket Tales. I wandered around a bit near the starting house, did nothing of note, and left with no true impression of the game.

If only I had stuck around long enough to realize how average this game is.

Flash forward at least a decade to a time near the present, where I became interested in a podcast called The Kongversation, where two enthusiastic and funny guys talk about games starring Donkey Kong or the closely associated cast of Rare characters like Conker and Banjo. I quite enjoy listening to it as I work or play games, and every now and again they do episode spotlights on certain games. One episode was for this game: Conker's Pocket Tales, one I had heard them praise in other episodes, so my curiosity grew and I decided to buy it so I can play it and then listen to the episode afterwards.

After playing it for a while, I'm not sure when I might listen to that episode, as completing the game seems like it will be a slog. If you ever wondered if Conker's turn towards the more irreverent and foul-mouthed Conker's Bad Fur Day was a good decision, this game should convince you that it was the only hope for this series. I have my own issues with Conker's Bad Fur Day of course, but its humor and over-the-top offensiveness make it an enjoyable game, certainly after your run-in with the Great Mighty Poo.

Conker's Pocket Tales, meanwhile, had the canned Twelve Tales been made as a follow-up with similar gameplay and sensibilities, would have likely marred the company's reputation long before the buyout by Microsoft. This Game Boy title thankfully fell off the radar of enough people for Banjo and DK to carry the Rare name to greatness.

Now then, the game itself: It's like a really crappy Link's Awakening. You wander around collecting gifts that were stolen from your birthday party by Evil Acorn, who also kidnapped your girlfriend. Current Rare employees seem to have no memory of this game, and that's no surprise as nothing really stands out about it. Fighting anything in the game is a drag, as you rely on a slingshot with limited ammo to do the deed and the enemies aren't challenging, only really good at being in the way. You also have a ground pound, but it only works as a finishing move as you'll be hurt if you use it on something that survives and isn't a wind-up mouse. The puzzles are standard "push box on switch" affairs, and every now and again there is a boss or a basic shooting minigame.

Rare has a reputation for doing a genre Nintendo has done but better: Donkey Kong Country is the better Super Mario Bros, Banjo-Kazooie the better Mario 64, Conker's Pocket Tales... it's like an early Zelda game without any of the interesting elements.

10:  SimCity 2000
System: Game Boy Advance
Genre: City Builder

The only game on this list simply for being a bad port, for it manages to suck all the fun out of a rather great series.

My love for SimCity came from the original on SNES, and its still my go-to city builder of choice as I play it on Wii's Virtual Console every now and again. I know there are better ones out there, and for a long time I played the disc version of the PC's SimCity 3000, although the disc itself and a computer with a suitable disc drive have yet to reunite in recent times. The SNES one stands as my lasting favorite though, but after playing both the SNES one and the PC's SimCity 3000, I wanted a city builder I could play on the go, and that's why I picked up SimCity 2000... and later sold it because I didn't like it at all.

The core gameplay is simple enough: build a city, watch it grow, deal with its problems and demands in an attempt to make it successful. It's actually a pretty good genre for a mobile system, as you can pick it up, change a few things, and not worry about having to stop the game to do something as it can save anytime and there is no true stopping point like a game with levels would have.

Sadly, this GBA port of SimCity 2000 makes compromises that hurt the game's overall feel. The small screen means you can't really get a great view of your city at large or even a decent sized area for operating in. Plumbing is entirely absent as a system, and while it's a bit more of a nuisance in city builders than something interesting, its absence can't help but be felt. Disasters are anemic affairs, and the screen is cluttered with your tools, making your beautiful city even more difficult to see behind it all. Sandwiched between the simplicity of the SNES original and the juggernaut that was the PC's 3000, 2000 felt like it was missing too much from both without contributing anything to justify its existence. Maybe the DS SimCity games were better, but 2000 made me mistrust the genre on handhelds, and at this point in time, there is literally no reason to go back to it, as modern city builders have more going for them and older ones can scratch your itch if you crave simplicity... or Bowser stomping on your city.

9: The UnderGarden
System: Steam
Genre: Casual Puzzle Game

That guy's pretty cute looking there. In game though, you start off with an ugly/cute bluish creature that certainly won't endear itself to you as you try and drag it through a supposedly "zen" game.

Before making this list, I made sure to give this a second go, as my initial experience with it made me so tired from the uninteresting gameplay I quit before finishing the first level. Well, I went in and beat the first level, and left with a headache for my troubles.

UnderGarden is a simplistic puzzle game where you float around a world collecting pollen to make plants grow back, occasionally solving puzzles with the fruit they grow while dragging around little dudes with instruments sometimes. The little dudes with instruments are the highlight of the game, as they are cute and have decent beats to share, but dragging them around is a chore and seemingly pretty useless. To be fair, doing anything is a chore, as the game relies solely on your mouse for movement. You hold down left click to move in a direction and it feels sluggish and awful no matter how you do it. Almost all the puzzles are finicky and the physics feel inconsistent and strange. Regrowing the plants is tedious and unrewarding as they are almost all generic stalks that don't even manage to be pretty, although the game thinks they are. There's another game on Steam called CreaVures that makes up for its basic but good enough gameplay with a beautiful aesthetic, but UnderGarden's aesthetic is lifeless even when you're literally putting life back into the world. Growing plants is an easy way to inject beauty, and yet it fails here.

Now, the bad gameplay tries to hide behind one strong claim from the developers: it's a Zen game. You're not supposed to play it like a normal game, its supposed to be enjoyed slowly and casually. Well... even that kind of game needs to engage you in some way. Growing the plants is boring as you keep needing to refill on pollen and the plants are nearly everywhere and require you to rub and refill over and over before doing anything of note if you want to 100% a level. Even if you ignore it, the gameplay just isn't relaxing at all. There are some good games like Zen Puzzle Garden and Zen Bound 2 that claim to be Zen but are a bit too frustrating at times to fit, but they are still good games so it's okay. If you really want a Zen game, I might recommend Woodle Tree Adventures for its simple gameplay, although some glitches and the occasional frustration crop up, its mostly a bit of mindless platforming fun with a cute aesthetic (although one achievement requires a glitch exploit to avoid being a boring grindfest). Even games like Sonic Labyrinth would make a better Zen game than UnderGarden, as they are still games that have gameplay and goals, even though you can zone out and play them easily enough due to their simplicity.

UnderGarden was apparently published by Atari, which in its current dark ages is no surprise. Really, this quote from the Wikipedia page says what I'm trying to say rather nicely: "msxbox-world.com described it as " [feeling] like an artsy game made by a bunch of businessmen, rather than an artist". It's got nothing to make it stand out but it hits all the marks it needs to in order to look Indie. I actually watched a video of it before buying where the guy playing it said I probably wouldn't enjoy it. I am sorry for doubting you sir.

8: Dungeon Hunter: Alliance
System: Playstation 3
Genre: Diablo-style Hack-and-Slash RPG

They say any game can be fun if you play it with friends.

Dungeon Hunter: Alliance proves that isn't true.

My brother, my long time friend Ven and I will often meet up and play video games, but there was a bit of a drought in new games to play at one point and it seemingly fell on me to track some down to inject a little variety and novelty in the game lineup we played. I browsed a few websites looking for fun multiplayer games and we ended up playing two of the games that seemingly came highly recommended: one was Castle Crashers, a game that my brother didn't enjoy but me and Ven were able to enjoy when we later played it two-player. The other... was Dungeon Hunter: Alliance.

There was a time I thought Diablo-style RPGs weren't for me, but much like Smite dispelled the idea that I would never like MOBAs and Civilization V made me realize I could like 4X strategy games... I thankfully found the game Torchlight before playing this game that embodies the issues I have with Diablo-clones. Loot-focused gameplay may work in single-player games, or even games with online co-op, but Dungeon Hunter: Alliance provides new and better loot so rapidly that the hack-and-slash battles must frequently be put on hold as obtuse menus are opened, covering huge swathes of the screen, to update to the latest gear.

Our gaming group made a valiant effort to persist despite the loot menus, with my brother as the warrior, me as mage, and Ven on the rogue... until everyone realized that long-range bow attacks were better in every situation seemingly and gameplay devolved into standing far away and picking off bad guys with little in the way of action. For a time I even specifically avoided praising my bow, as I was the first to pick it up as my attack of choice, as I feared that would happen if the others found out how good it was.

Efforts were made to keep things from going stale, and there are a few jokes we extracted from playing it (like everyone trying to shaft me with Muslin equipment long after it stopped being useful), but the core gameplay was broken over our knees by the Bow Party and the story certainly wasn't keeping us around. Single-player does not sound promising either, as you'd have no one to talk with and you'd instead have those lonesome loot menus and bow battles to yourself.

Dungeon Hunter: Alliance is probably the first of these bland games that I would consider a bad game for being so bland. Conker, Magical Starsign... heck, even UnderGarden might be tolerated or have room for improvement later in the game. But now... we've entered the lower echelons of mediocrity.

7: Surgeon Simulator 2013
System: Steam
Genre: Obtuse-Controls "Simulator"

In what I imagine might be my most controversial inclusion on this list, I feel Surgeon Simulator isn't really a game to be played so much as watched on Youtube as humorous Let's Players struggle with the controls. Games like this, Octodad, and QWOP are all part of a new breed of game where the controls are made obtuse on purpose and serve as the main challenge of the game rather than the task at hand. The thing is, Octodad and QWOP both offer far more tangible goals, and QWOP is short enough to be enjoyable while Octodad is certainly more palatable control-wise than Surgeon Simulator. Games like Goat Simulator rely on wacky physics to make humorous situations for the player to experience, but most of Surgeon Simulator's humor comes from the concept rather than the execution.

The goal of a round of Surgeon Simulator is to complete a simplified operation even though your individual fingers are all mapped to different keys. Your wrist is also independently controlled, and there are many tools to knock around beside the operating table. There is no real penalty for messing around unless you really go to far... but messing around really doesn't offer much. Even cracking open a skull with a hammer feels rather underwhelming thanks to the plain animation and lack of true reaction from the gaming world. That's why I recommend it more as a game to watch others play, as they can react and actually give you something worth watching, whereas the gameplay is too basic if you work out the complexities, which really isn't hard compared to games like QWOP. If you have to force yourself to perform poorly to extract fun, then you have discovered a special style of denial.

The game can also be pegged for starting the trend of ironic simulator games or other Obtuse-Control games like Ampu-Tea which deviate completely into the territory of being bad, as the joke of Surgeon Simulator is that its something incredibly complex turned into a goofy physics toybox. I think that's the real issue after all: it's a physics toybox more than anything, and while similar toyboxes like Windosill avoided this list for being honest about that quality and very short, Surgeon Simulator 2013 became a phenomenon thanks to Youtube, while the game itself is rather uninteresting to play, as even the "frustration gaming" side of it doesn't hold much water as the goal is arbitrary and the operation easily repeatable and short. I really wanted to enjoy this one, and they've added updates to up the variety, but its basically just paint jobs for an experience that can't really be enjoyed solo.

6: Akimbo: Kung Fu Hero
System: PC CD-ROM
Genre: Platformer

Bless my older sister's heart for noticing my interest in video games and trying to buy me one as a gift. Sadly, her good intentions fell short as she had no idea how to find out which games are good and she likely was tricked by a cover that looks much more interesting than anything the game has to offer.

Despite the anime-inspired appearance of our protagonist Akimbo on the cover here, Akimbo and every other living thing in this game take the form of lumpy models as 3D was becoming the hip thing in PC gaming. Akimbo and the 3D models bounce around 2D environments in a very poor and needlessly difficult platformer that really is as hard as it is because of the poor controls and the sorry excuse for Kung-Fu on display. Akimbo's attacks have no range to them and little satisfying substance, so most enemies are best off ignored and hopped over. The platforming is nothing new, with generic collectibles floating around and rather plain level design.

Akimbo is the embodiment of the cliché 2D Platformer, and even though it gives you punches and kicks instead of Goomba stomps to take on enemies, it couldn't better embody the sorry state of the genre back before it fell out of vogue.

Akimbo has also made me hesitant to buy the highly praised but very similar in appearance platformer Tomba! on the PSN, although the lackluster trailer did it no favors as well. But that is how deeply Akimbo burned me: it makes me mistrust other games that bear even a passing resemblance to it.

I almost can't think of anything else to say about it. It does nothing unique, it takes no risks, its core selling point (the Kung-Fu) has less depth than the NES Kung-Fu from years earlier, and I almost think that quote on the case must be IGN having a quote removed from context. It's a Frankenstein of all the most basic components needed to be a platformer. I certainly do not bemoan the fact that my laptop's CD drive does not work, as I'm missing nothing by not being able to play Akimbo, who as far as I know, never truly stands akimbo. I don't even recall him using that sword but he must get it at some point. I mostly just remember being killed by clams with googly eyes.

5: Duck Hunt
System: Wii U Virtual Console (originally NES)
Genre: Light Gun Shooter

No one ever made it a rule that video games needed to be timeless, but Duck Hunt would certainly break that rule if it did exist. One of the earliest Light Gun games and certainly the most popular, Duck Hunt has not stood the test of time, and I am quite happy it was my brother who bought when it came to the Wii U Virtual Console instead of me, as I barely got an hour or two of out this dated shooting game.

I can certainly believe it was something in its time, but unlike Pong which can still be enjoyed for its simplicity, Duck Hunt almost feels too simple. Game A (and may I say I dislike games having a Game A and Game B be titled that way if they are completely different, most likely due to a mistrust built up from games that have Game A and Game B as tiny variations on one game instead of separate game types) is the well known Duck Hunt mode, where a bunch of Ducks fly out of the bushes and you shoot them down. Thing is... it really isn't that difficult. The ducks fly out in rather simple and predictable patterns, and it requires much less precision to peg them than most light gun games. Of course, as time goes on, the Ducks get harder to shoot as they fly faster, but the difficulty progression is just slow enough that by the time you're missing ducks, you're doing so more out of boredom than out of the climbing difficulty. The Game Over and laughing dog are quite welcome after trying to pay attention to the game long enough to succeed.

Game B at least seems to be more of a challenge even before the difficulty hike. Clay Pigeons are shot out and you must shoot them down, and their size scales as they fly further away from you, meaning even the easy ones must be shot early so they don't become more difficult to peg. Still, much like the ducks, they never really do much besides get thrown out to be shot in predictable paths and patterns.

It seems a bit rude to pick on the grandfather of Light Gun games, but without nostalgia to prop up Duck Hunt, most people will find it to be a rather plain experience. Even simple hunting games, like the arcade cabinets you find at Chuck E. Cheese where they give you five bullets to shoot 3 bucks, are far more interesting. Shots are strategic there (at least theoretically) and the shots more satisfying. By the end of your first round through of duck shooting though, its hard to wring any fun from the remaining waves of ducks before you cave-in and let yourself lose or simply lose when the ducks get too fast to track. Although I'm sure you could track them if you wanted to, it's just nearly impossible to care by that point.

Duck Hunt by this point is a fossil: it's valuable in that it provides knowledge of our past, but it can't do much else besides that.

4: WarioWare: Snapped!
System: DSi
Genre: Camera-Based Minigames

The DSi created quite a splash when it was given built-in cameras and the ability to download virtual titles, and to introduced the DSiware to the world, Nintendo created a few simple games to test the waters. Birds and Beans was pulled out of the WarioWare games, and although it was an orphaned minigame, it was still enjoyable enough. WarioWare's larger minigames were a decent fit for cheap downloadable titles (although these days charging 2 bucks for a game like Birds and Beans would cause tons of internet whining).  The other game Nintendo released though was WarioWare: Snapped! Wow! A whole new WarioWare game! Sure it's five bucks, so it won't be as big as the others, but it'll still be fun, right?

Unfortunately, the camera gimmick used in all the games is a complete disaster. The DSi camera is decent enough for taking pictures (they weren't the best quality but were okay for the time), but relying on the camera for motion games was a terrible, terrible decision. When even the Kinect couldn't handle it years later with better equipment, the DSi camera was doomed to fail as a motion-detecting device. Not to mention that the DSi camera had a weird habit of turning you into a shadow man no matter how bright it was.

Anyway, Snapped! asks you to place your DSi on a table or something and stand far away enough so your hands and face are visible, so already you are far from a tiny screen trying to play minigames with a body you can barely see. Bizarrely, there is a subset of games (1/4 of the total amount on offer!) that can only be played with two people, further stretching the capabilities of a camera that was already not up to snuff.

The games run the gambit of so easy you can basically make any motion to win to impossible thanks to the camera's poor detection of your body. The microgames will grind to a halt if it's not detecting you right, so the frantic and speedy nature of WarioWare is ruined when you try to win a game quickly only for the DSi to fail to register your waving hand as a waving hand. There are 20 or so microgames total and although you may find a decent one every now and again, you can only play them in five game chunks.

Nintendo was too new to DSiware and WarioWare did the best it could with the limitations of the new frontier and the new tech, but it was doomed before it left the starting gate thanks to the poor design decision of trying to use a DSi camera like the Playstation Eye.

3: Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection
System: Playstation 2
Genre: Pinball

Picking on a Pinball game may seem like me choosing an easy target, but I'm actually a big fan of virtual pinball. Pokemon Pinball, Sonic Spinball, and Pinball FX2 (which uses somewhat realistic Pinball tables) are all games I've enjoyed, and while games like Mario Pinball Land were underwhelming, they were still fun at times. Having played a variety of Pinball games as well as a couple real Pinball tables, I felt buying a game that took classic Pinball tables and digitized them wouldn't be a bad idea. The Gottlieb Collection and the as-of-yet-never-owned Williams Collection both spoke to me, and Gottlieb was the one I got first... and the one that made me not want to pursue the Williams Collection.

The pinball mechanics work fine and everything, but the collection of tables available are so uninspired or strangely complex that none of them make me wish to continue playing them. The only one with any hope is Tee'd Off, a simple golf themed table with groundhogs and a refreshing simplicity compared to some of the other tables that have multiple table layers or some other alienating premise.

A lot of real world Pinball tables use a franchise to draw eyes and players, so these unaffiliated ones must have felt the need to really innovate to grab the attention of flighty pinball players, but the strange gimmicks coupled with unrewarding gameplay makes me want to pass them all by in this virtual arcade. You'd think it would be easy to make the pinball satisfying with some bright flashing lights and loud noises, but it's too busy trying to push the core gimmick to allow itself to be fun or interesting.

The pinball collection offers nothing that I wouldn't rather get from a physical pinball table or a better executed fictional one. I imagine this is supposed to be a bit of a nostalgia hook for Pinball Wizards, but this collection holds no magic for anyone who just wants a set of tables for some relaxing and enjoyable virtual pinball.

2: Dear Esther
System: Steam
Genre: Walking Simulator/Art Game

Welcome to the bottom of the barrel, where only two completely bland games remain, one of which is offensive in claiming itself to be art when the game has barely substance to it at all.

Although I do not like the negative connotation of the term "Walking Simulator" and how liberally the term is applied these days, that is really all there is to Dear Esther. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a beautiful game with a compelling story, and I enjoyed games like Gone Home that often get the name "Walking Simulator" tacked onto them, and although I'm not really a fan of the "find the note" gameplay of Gone Home and its kin, it certainly beats the do-nothing gameplay of Dear Esther. Dear Esther is technically an art game, which supposedly absolves it of all criticism when really, if it truly was an art game, then discussion and criticism should be done more heavily of it than a standard video game.

Dear Esther's gameplay consists of walking around an island and gradually being told a story as you progress. However, these story tidbits are randomly selected and it can take up to four playthroughs to even get the complete story, whereas one is more than enough for anyone and the story doesn't really get more fleshed out than a generic one you'd know the important details of regardless of which ones you randomly get. Dear Esther is about a man whose wife died in a car crash. There, that is the bulk of the story. Of course he's sad about it, but there's not much done with the story or setup and it carries about the standard emotional weight you'd expect from that without any substance to back it up. The island the game takes place on is good looking when not under close scrutiny, where you'll realize the grass and mushrooms are just a bunch of 2-d sprites. For a world you'll be looking at the whole time with no interaction of any sort, you'd think they'd make that less obvious.

You move through some rather uninteresting locations, told a standard story, and then it ends predictably. There are some setpieces, and the beach full of shipwrecks, perhaps the most interesting one, seems to have no purpose. Dear Esther probably gets more praise then it deserves for shaking the tree and making us look at what truly constitutes a game, but its got too many contemporaries these days who do its ideas better, with better stories, environments, and sometimes they even include gameplay!

I try not to use the word pretentious lightly, but Dear Esther pretty much embodies it. It takes you for granted and gives you very little for giving it the benefit of the doubt. There are very few games I want to hate, and I hoped that Dear Esther wouldn't be a bad game when I played it, but it really did nothing to try and earn my favor.

Art is subjective, but bad art and good art can both elicit reactions from people who see it. Dear Esther just doesn't really have anything interesting to evoke reactions from anyone. Is there anything worse than mediocre art?

Before we continue on to number one, I felt this would be a good place to share some...

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS

Here I'm going to list really quickly some games that were uniquely bland without being offensively so.  Perhaps they didn't meet expectations or simply failed to be boring enough to earn a spot on the list, but very briefly, here are the games that were kinda bland, but not really that bad.

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3
System: Game Boy
Genre: Platformer

I'm a big fan of the Wario platformers and have been one since I played the excellent Wario Land 4, and while some games have difficulty in being memorable experiences despite being fun (Wario: Master of Disguise and Wario Land: Shake It! deserving special mention despite their steps to avoid it), going back to play Wario's first solo game made me realize how lucky we are to have gotten it as a full series. Wario Land 1 plays like what a modern bad licensed platformer game might play like. The throwing mechanic is incredibly basic and not very interesting, and the hats are so vital to the gameplay that losing them means you might as well restart the level.

Still, Wario Land can be powered through and it isn't exactly bad in the end, just a bit generic and a poor start for a series that would prove its worth in the next installment.

Tales of Symphonia
System: Gamecube
Genre: JRPG

And I thought Surgeon Simulator would be my most controversial pick! Now, while most the games on this list I would argue are objectively bland, Tales of Symphonia feels more like its just personally bland to me. Symphonia had a lot of things going for it to make it sell well and become a classic, being a JRPG on a system that desperately needed them. It's only contemporaries really were the atypical and quirky Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and the criminally overlooked Skies of Arcadia Legends. Not to mention it had co-op, which is a major selling point on a Nintendo console.

However, much of my problems with it are sort of echoes of my issues with Magical Starsign. It's a pretty standard RPG that does nothing to break the mold, doing things that were cliché and trite that even its progenitors had grown out of by this point. My brother and I could call plot points in advance like the fate of the old woman in the concentration camp, and whenever the plot need a push forward, the female lead Colette inexplicably tripped into progressing the plot, something that could barely work even in a parody plot. Not to mention the overarching plot was generic as all get out. The gameplay was passable, but the story made me mistrust the Tales of... series as whole. Perhaps it might be possible for me to like it if I went in with a different mindset, but as of now, it is just too bland for me. Looking up some reviews for it, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one to dislike the plot.

After all, Tales of Symphonia has had a sequel by now, of which I have not heard any sort of opinion on. I guess no one really wanted the story continued so much as the gameplay.


Most Any Winter Olympic Game
Pictured: Nagano Winter Olympics '98 (Nintendo 64) and Winter Olympic Games (Sega Genesis)

If this had been a Top 15 Blandest Video games list, these two Olympic games might have made the cut, but their placement in reference to each other would have been arbitrary and they are both really indicative of a bigger trend in gaming.

For the most part, save series like the Mario sports titles, you only ever really need a rather modern sports title to scratch your itch of a specific sport. If your Madden is recent enough, you don't really need to buy the newer ones. This sort of leaves us with a big bag of games made for the Winter Olympics, none of which are really worth owning. Even the Olympics knew its games were bad and trusted the brand recognition of Mario and Sonic to carry it in recent years, and the only reason those are any good really seems to be because of the dream events they include where they basically just make their own games up.

Meanwhile, realistic winter Olympic games are tasked with making a bunch of sports titles all in one game, reducing the love and care each might need to become excellent on their own, as its basically becomes a minigame collection but with decent sized sports games. So many winter events are similar as well, with skiing spanning multiple events, bobsled and luge being basically the same, and so many variations on ice skating that it's hard to remain interesting. And curling, which is its own problem. Then comes the gameplay, which no matter how hard one tries, the Ski Jump is almost always going to be rather bland.

Winter Olympic games are just tasked with adapting a bland property, as even the Winter Olympics are basically just the less popular Olympics. Almost every Olympic event people care about is in the Summer. Thing is, Winter Olympic games are simply not bland enough to be offensive, and sometimes one or two games squeeze out something interesting.

They certainly can't hold a candle to the most bland game in all of video game history...

1: Yoshi
System: Wii Virtual Console (originally NES)
Genre: Puzzle

Remember how I said this was the list of the Blandest games I've ever played, and not the worst? Well, what if a game is so unbelievably bland that it could even top any other bad game that dares challenge it?

Yoshi is a deceptive little creature, wearing the cute dinosaur as a mascot for an absolutely abysmal puzzle game. I have no true favorite genre of video game, but I sometimes say Puzzle as it is a genre I really do enjoy. Yoshi is the antithesis to enjoyable puzzle games. Yoshi is offensively bland, and even when it went on sale for around 30 cents on the Wii U Virtual Console, I warned my brother it wasn't worth that price. He didn't listen, and even he now agrees it wasn't worth it.

Yoshi is, indeed, technically a puzzle game. There are four lanes, and two enemies will fall in side-by-side pairs rather slowly to fill them. There are four enemy types so you can pretty much assign an enemy to a lane, and eggshells sometimes fall instead which you can use to sandwich all the enemies in a lane for a lot of points. In Game A, you play until you fill a lane too high, which is a nigh impossible feat if done on purpose. It's hard to do by not pressing anything. It's so easy to match enemies that there is no challenge in this mode, as you can go on forever without issue. The only thing to really mess you up is trying to get big stacks between eggshells for a lot of points, although its technically easier and smarter to earn those points through gradual matching.

Game B is slightly more of a game with a challenge. Now, rather than just getting points, the goal is to completely clear the playing field. There is likely some predetermined point where you are meant to have done it each level, as if you don't do so, you'll keep getting in situations where there is one enemy type left, and then the next piece that drops is that enemy type and a different one, and so on like that forever. This mode at least seems easier to fail at.

There is an argument to be made that this game is for kids, thus explaining its simplicity.  I'm no fool, I know certain games are for certain demographics. I'm not going to put Bratz: Forever Diamonds, Barney's Hide & Seek or Donkey Kong Jr. Math on here. But Yoshi does not qualify as one of these. Young children will either be unable to do puzzle games like Yoshi at all or find the game too bland to play. Children need bombastic feedback from their games to keep playing, and Yoshi would be a terrible attention getter if young children were expected to play it. I'm sure there are modern young kids who can enjoy and play well enough iPhone puzzle games adults enjoy despite being technically in the demographic for playing Yoshi.

Yoshi is a boring game marketed towards an uninterested audience that lives on only because Nintendo plopped their cute dinosaur on the title.

Yoshi is both the Worst and the Blandest game I have ever played, and I doubt it will ever be topped.