2007 was a great year for video games. With all three next-gen consoles going full steam ahead, there were tons of fantastic offerings for every taste. You can see my picks for favorite games on individual consoles in the 2007 Favorites section. Here though, you'll find an assortment of unusual awards highlighting some of the year's best game-related offerings - but since this is Demonbaby, you'll mostly find awards for the worst, weirdest, and dumbest of the past year.


Best Gaming Experiences Of The Year On Completely Opposite Ends Of The Spectrum:
Super Mario Galaxy and Bioshock


Without equal, the most enjoyment I've gotten out of video games in the last year has been the time I've spent flipping, jumping, flying, bouncing, and floating through the gorgeous, imaginative worlds of Super Mario Galaxy, and, in a very different way, the time I've spent battling my way through the dark, eerie, underwater world of Rapture in Bioshock.


Super Mario Galaxy achieves, above all, the sense of wonder and absolute fun that you felt as a child when you first played the original Super Mario Bros. The sense of surprise and discovery with each bizarre, unique new galaxy you leap into will make you smile over and over again, and the way it feels to dash around spherical worlds and play with the constantly-changing rules of gravity is superb. Add in perfectly-integrated Wii controls, beautiful graphics and art direction, and a fantastic Disney-esque orchestral score, and you have an unequaled masterpiece. Easily the best platform game I've ever played, and the best game of 2007 - there's little I can do to properly describe Galaxy - you just need to get it in your hands and feel how fun it is.


On the opposite side of the spectrum, Bioshock may not make you feel like a kid again, but it does, well, let you kill kids. At its core Bioshock is a very well-made first-person horror shooter, with cool weapons, great enemies, and a lot of awesomely creepy moments. But so are a lot of games. What elevates Bioshock to something truly special is the awe-inspiring world it creates. Set in 1960, Bioshock introduces you to Rapture, an underwater city built secretly by an idealistic billionaire who sought to create a utopia of genetically enhanced people. Naturally, it's all gone terribly wrong, and by the time you arrive in Rapture its citizens have gone mad and the place is in ruins. This results in one of the most beautifully-realized fictional environments in video game history - an art deco dreamworld of the 1950's with a Jules Verne twist, but weathered and rusted, flooded and burned, with flickering neon, creaking support beams, dripping ceilings, and jukeboxes crowing eerie old '50's music that skips and warps from water damage. Every detail is meticulously crafted, every room perfectly designed, the film noir lighting is moody and dynamic, and the sound design - particularly in surround sound - is haunting and utterly absorbing. Then there are the frightening and bizarre Big Daddies, lumbering mechanical beasts who patrol Rapture's depths, guarding eerie little girls who aren't as innocent as they seem. It's the stuff of both dreams and nightmares, and it's all under an umbrella of breathtaking art direction to rival any film I saw in 2007. Additionally, dozens of characters, portrayed by some of the best voice acting I've heard in a video game, flesh out a rich back story that makes Rapture feel astoundingly real. You feel it as a physical place, as a real place with history and depth, and as a society formed in hubris and torn apart by man's brutal, selfish nature. It's one of the most immersive gaming environments I've had the pleasure of exploring, and when it was over, I didn't want to leave. Bioshock will satisfy any gamer's need for tense action and big guns, but it will satisfy a curious other type of person as well: anyone who appreciates masterfully-crafted works of art.


Most Unexpectedly Awesome Game Ending:
Portal


Portal, a short but fantastic game included in the great Orange Box game collection, has topped many best-of-2007 lists. And while its concept, gameplay, and presentation are top-notch, it's the twisted, hilarious HAL-inspired computer antagonist, speaking to you throughout the game in a glitchy female voice, who really makes the game memorable. Named GLaDOS, the computer voice promises you a party with cake if you complete the Aperture Science Research Lab's deadly tests.

Spoiler Alert: At the the end of Portal, when you've famously discovered that "the cake is a lie" and destroyed the menacing GLaDOS, the camera zooms into the rubble of the research lab and reveals GLaDOS alive and well, with the promised cake. And then... she sings a song. It's such an unexpected moment that it's guaranteed to incite laughter. It's a brilliantly ridiculous song, performed as the credits roll, indicating that despite your apparent victory, the whole thing went exactly as GLaDOS planned, even if she's a little heartbroken that you tried to killed her. The song, written by nerd musician Jonathan Coulton, has become an internet sensation amongst gamers, though your appreciation of it will likely depend on your familiarity with Portal. Here it is, the full ending of Portal with the song "Still Alive," performed by GLaDOS:




Best Documentary About A Douchebag With A Mullet Playing Donkey Kong:
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

In the spirit of Spellbound and Murderball, 2007's premier niche competition documentary follows the world champions of Nintendo's 1981 arcade classic, Donkey Kong. No, it's not a documentary of old footage from '80's arcade championships - this takes place now, with grown men still trying to outdo each other's scores to claim the record. The best part of this film is its colorful cast of middle-aged nerds from the golden age of arcades. Chief among them is Billy Mitchell, widely regarded as "the greatest arcade video game player of all time." Billy has a cocky attitude, a mullet, an American flag tie, and a face that screams "I'm a fucking asshole":


His epic struggle against a mild-mannered school teacher for the crown of World Donkey Kong Champion plays out fantastically in The King Of Kong, making it the most entertaining movie about gamers since, well, this:




Best Breeding Ground For The Next Billy Mitchell:
Pac-Man Championship Edition


I'm a huge fan of classic arcade games, and have quite a few full-sized cabinets in my home. There's nothing that quite compares to the challenge, addictiveness, and unparalleled gameplay of masterpieces like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Galaga, Robotron, and Space Invaders. The key was in the deceptiveness of their simplicity - for while Pac-Man seemed to be as basic as running around and avoiding ghosts, attempting to truly master the game reveals more complexity than you could possibly imagine. So attempts at updating those old classics over the years has never particularly worked, failing to capture the elusive magic that made them so perfect. But last year, Pac-Man's original creator Toru Iwatani unveiled the first true update to the game in 26 years, Pac-Man Championship Edition, a downloadable game for Xbox Live Arcade - and amazingly, it's an absolute blast. With just the right amount of tweaking and just the right amount of familiarity, Championship Edition gives Pac-Man a facelift and adds addicting, challenging new modes, resulting in a wildly fun, reinvigorated game that's one of the best original offerings on XBLA. It even has graphic and sound upgrades that are surprisingly tasteful, a rarity in XBLA retro updates. And of course, your scores are ranked online, so you can instantly see how pitifully far behind you are from the next generation's Billy Mitchell.


Best/Worst Game Of The Year, Possibly Ever:
Earth Defense Force 2017


Everyone's familiar with "B" movies, and many people, like myself, have a soft spot for them - movies so shitty and ridiculous, so low budget and low concept, they're completely enjoyable. Movies whose weaknesses become their strengths. Strangely, no such phenomenon exists in the video game world. When video games are shitty, they're just plain shitty. So imagine my surprise when I discovered the gem that is Earth Defense Force 2017, a budget-priced title for Xbox 360 and a true "B" video game - so corny and dumb and poorly produced that it transcends terrible and takes a bold step into amazing. The game's paper-thin plot is that, in the not-too-distant future, aliens have invaded earth. These aliens are (surprise!) not friendly, and are comprised of a nonsensical mish-mash of giant ants (a la the sci-fi classic Them!), giant spiders, and giant robots. They're causing wanton destruction around the world - in particular, Tokyo (surprise again! the game originated in Japan!), which is where you encounter them crawling up skyscrapers and eating civilians. As part of the Earth Defense Force, your job is to mindlessly blast the fuck out of all these giant alien creatures, taking with you many innocent lives, most of the Tokyo skyline, and every single law of physics. Yes, the game's low-budget production values shine through every pixel of the experience, from the hilariously bad voice acting ("Dang those giant ants! I'm gonna blow them to smithereens!") to the almost impressive lack of any lighting (nothing in the game casts anything that even resembles a shadow) or physics (the bodies of several-ton giant ants bounce around like popcorn). But not only does none of that matter, it all becomes vitally important to the fun - particularly when you realize you can throw a tiny grenade at a skyscraper and watch the entire thing subsequently collapse into low-polygon rubble. Delightfully uncomplicated gameplay that's basically Robotron in 3D, your only goal ever in EDF 2017 is to kill everything that moves, which you'll do with a wide variety of weapons and unlimited ammo. The bottom line is: Inside a package of endearingly poor production and cheesy "B" movie style, you get to spend hours of curiously-addicting fun attacking giant, acid-spewing insects and monstrous laser-shooting japanese robots - and for a bargain price, no less. For all that, I can't recommend this tragically overlooked game quite enough - just don't expect Gears Of War.


Handheld Game Genre Most Over-Crowded With Shitty Knock-Offs:
Nintendo DS "Pet Simulators"

There's a curious thing that happens in the world of gaming: When someone comes up with a unique idea that really takes off, a whole lot of uncreative, shameless game publishers quickly shit-out half-assed clones of the original idea, and flood the market in hopes that some idiot will confuse the cheaper, shittier clone game with its superior original. This happens most dramatically in the world of portable gaming, where the production costs are cheap, the turnaround time relatively quick, and there are a lot of young gamers with parents who barely know Silent Hill from Dora's Spelling Adventures, let alone the difference between Dogz and Nintendogs.

In 2005, Nintendo made a cute, clever series of games called Nintendogs, which used the DS's unique interface to let you raise and care for a strangely compelling virtual puppy. It was a unique and well-executed game which became very popular amongst casual gamers (read: little kids and chicks). And while they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it's also the sincerest form of capitalism: Cheaper, shoddier "pet simulator" clones quickly emerged for the DS, and by 2007, the phenomena had grown to ghastly proportions.

Apparently there are a lot of parents out there who hate their children, because there wouldn't be a "Pet Dolphinz 2" right now if no one had bought the first one. Yes, dolphins - er, dolphinZ, because those are kewler. Raising puppies and kitties wore out its welcome pretty quickly, so now your kids can bore themselves to tears caring for low-budget virtual hamsters, horses, dolphins, and most recently, babies. I imagine the baby simulators are exactly like the pet simulators, except maybe you can't teach them tricks. I'm hoping 2008 will bring us Dung Beetle Simulator, My South American Three Toed Slothz, Brown Recluse Friends, and Care For An Invalid.

Since I have to weed through these horrendous titles every time I'm at the games store looking for something decent, I am now going to punish you with the covers of every pet simulator game I could find released for the Nintendo DS during 2007. Enjoy!










I was going to make a joke about how that last cover looks like you just walked in on some sort of bizarre kitten orgy, but someone already beat me to it.

2008 shows the pet simulator onslaught continuing at full speed. This gem, Pet Pals: Animal Doctor, hasn't come out yet (I have mine on pre-order), but its cover is an absolutely horrifying/hilarious Photoshop atrocity:


If I brought my dog into the vet and saw a creepy airbrushed Latino man stroking a rabbit and gazing longingly at my pet like he wants to whip out the peanut butter, I'd get the fuck out of there.

Actually, that guy looks kind of familiar... where have I seen him before? Oh, that's right, he's Mega Man from the original NES Mega Man (worst) box cover (ever)!




Good to see he's still getting work after all these years.


Most Irritating Devotion To Shitty Gaming Technology:
Sony And its Wiitarded Sixaxis Controller


Many years ago, I was up in Seattle reuniting with some old friends, and we were getting spectacularly drunk. We were doing tequila shots and washing them down with the only thing we had around: Mountain Dew. I know, I know - disgusting, and a lethal combination, to be sure. At that time, the now legendary Sega Dreamcast was a new and wonderful thing, and my friends hadn't played it yet, so we fired up the white wonder and started up a game of Crazy Taxi. As it turns out, drunk driving a video game taxi is both difficult and extremely hazardous. Upon watching my inebriated friends crash the virtual car into walls and swerve recklessly through crowds of polygonal pedestrians, I belligerently told them they had no idea what they were doing, and snatched the controller away so I could "show them how it's done." In fact, all I showed them was comedy gold, as I proceeded to swerve my taxi wildly back and forth across the street, crashing into almost everything. In my damaged state, the controller seemed to have a mind of its own, taunting me by doing exactly the opposite of what I thought I was telling it to do. Within a minute, the violent swerving of the video game car was reacting with the volatile tequila/Mountain Dew cocktail in my stomach, and, according to my friends, my face turned ghostly white, and I muttered meekly, "I need some fresh air," before bolting outside and spewing a fountain of green vomit all over the place. Crazy Taxi holds a special place in our hearts to this day, for being the only game ever to make me puke.

The point of that story is that many years later, the first time I tried playing a game with Sony's "Sixaxis" PS3 motion-sensing controller, I was very much sober, but I immediately felt like I was drunk driving that taxi again. The game this time was MotorStorm, a fun off-road racer which becomes hilariously unplayable with the motion controls activated. You'll swerve wildly left and right, fly off cliffs, crash into walls, and you might just want to vomit.

For those who don't know, the "Sixaxis" controller was Sony's last minute, panicked response to Nintendo's Wii. But where Wii is a platform based entirely around its unique motion-sensing controller, Sony stuck a gyroscope inside a standard PS2 controller (which makers of PC gamepads had been doing for years, to little fanfare) and tried to pass it off as something that was going to elevate the gaming experience. Exactly no one was impressed, and a year in, the result is a number of PS3-exclusive games with frustrating, awkwardly-implemented motion controls that only elevate your desire to throw the Shitaxis controller through your TV screen. The most famous of these is Lair, Factor 5's much-hyped dragon game which promised to use immersive motion controls that felt like you were actually taking control of a flying dragon (and cause millions of nerdgasms). What they didn't mention is that your dragon must have had a long night at Ye Olde Ale House, because he flies like a drunken fucking nightmare when you try to maneuver him with the mandatory Shitaxis motion controls. Both Factor 5 and Sony denied that Sony forced the developer to use motion controls exclusively, but I don't buy it - there have been far too many examples of smart first-party developers including God-awful Shitaxis controls that they would have never let out the door had Sony not been forcing the issue to prove that Shitaxis was just as good as the Wiimote.

Case in point: In the great game Ratchet & Clank Future, your characters control like a dream with the classic analog joystick, but when you reach certain parts of the game that require you to fly a glider-like device, you'll be suddenly requested to use the Shitaxis motion sensor, for no clear reason or benefit. Attempting to steer by tilting your Shitaxis will have you flailing the unresponsive controller around like an idiot, only to find your glider doing the exact opposite of what you want it to do. After dive-bombing into the abyss several times in a row and swearing loudly at your television, the game seems to apologize for the whole ordeal, and actually brings up a message asking if you'd like to try it with normal controls! Once you're offered such a privilege, the task becomes ten trillion times easier, and you'll fly like an ace.

Another example: Recently I've been playing the excellent game Uncharted, which again controls wonderfully until its maddening insistence on incorporating motion controls. The most irritating of these is that to throw a grenade, you must tilt the controller to adjust the arc of your throw. This is so unbelievably clunky, slow, and unresponsive, that in the heat of battle it makes a grenade about as helpful as a cole sore. For proof, here's a video of me, a seasoned video game veteran, trying to throw a grenade at a specific bad guy in Uncharted. Watch me pull a perfect head shot in the beginning using the analog joystick, and then enjoy my mounting frustration as I attempt to aim the motion-controlled grenade, and die over and over again because I get shot in the fucking head before I can properly aim the fucker:



You'll see the aim seem to sit in one place for seconds at a time - that's my trying to fine-tune it to land in a very specific spot - a breeze with a joystick, but subtle movements translate into exactly diddlyfuck with the Shitaxis tilt sensors. And yes, I sit at home alone, shouting profanities at my TV screen. Doesn't everyone?

When three top-notch developers cripple all or part of their games with ball-sucking control gimmicks, you know something's afoot. Sony's pressuring them to use the Shitaxis because otherwise, no one ever would. It's a clumsy hunk of fuck and you know it, Sony - now stop punishing us with your mistakes, and let's all just forget the whole thing ever happened.


Lamest Video Game Fashion Trend:
Guys In Big Futuristic Metal Combat Suits


Ever since Halo soiled the tidy whities of a generation of geeks the world over, and simultaneously soiled the wallets of Microsoft with green, video games have been shamelessly and repetitively employing big, tough, overly-militaristic characters with big guns and big futuristic metal combat suits. This type of imagery is corny, cliched, and now overdone to the point of absurdity, but it speaks so directly to the testosterone-coated hearts of dweeby, mouth-breathing teenage boys that it continues to be a guaranteed moneymaker. It's also a guaranteed girl repellant, as few things this side of World Of Warcraft help preserve the image of gaming as a private club of greasy, fap-happy fanboys who haven't come any closer to getting laid than the time they walked in on their sister using the bathroom. I'd like to believe that in 2008 everyone will be a little tired of big tough guys in big metal combat suits, but since Halo 3 was inexplicably the biggest thing since Jesus, it seems as though we're doomed to another year of offensively uncreative character design.


Best Reason To Avoid Xbox Live:
Its 10 Million Users

I wanted a funny picture here of some overzealous nerd with his Xbox Live headset strapped on, so I searched Google Images for "xbox nerd headset" and ironically, the only headset-toting doofus on the first page of results was me. Here I am lampooning how lame one feels while wearing a gaming headset, from my 2006 post making fun of Xbox Live:


Since not much has changed, I'll give you my 2006 description of the "sweaty, acne-faced know-it-alls" who populate Xbox Live: "I'm a huge fucking nerd... But I have to draw the line somewhere. I have to employ some degree of moderation in my nerdiness. The fine folks you'll be chatting with on Xbox Live know no such moderation. They are more or less the same type of pit-stained dweebs who populate internet gaming and computer forums, the anonymous stomping grounds of the opinionated loser elite where sniveling, empowered teenagers spend all day having fictional arguments with each other. It is here where you might see CovenantLord666 mocking l337CommandWarrior1984's laughably inferior knowledge of Final Fantasy chronology, to which SephirothTheAlmighty might wittingly chime in with 'H0ly sh1tz0rz j00 0wnzorzed him upz0r!1' Riveting interactions like these come to life in a whole new way when you slide on your headset and discover that, when you finally get to hear them talk, all of these sweaties manage to have the exact same voice. You know the one: that snide, nasally tone, drenched in the overconfidence that only anonymity can provide, each sentence suffixed with a breathy sneer of a chuckle that says, in no uncertain terms: 'I firmly believe that I am better than you in every way possible... so long as we're safely distanced by the internet.'"

These kids spend absurd amounts of hours memorizing maps, grunting into their headsets, and getting way better at playing games about guys in big futuristic metal combat suits than I ever could, or would ever want to. With Halo 3 making 2007 the biggest online fragfest ever, the legions of sweaties were in rare form, pumped up with Red Bull and eager to prove that while they may never touch a boob, damned if they won't have a higher Gamerscore than you. When I join an online game and get my head blown off within seconds, from a gunman I didn't even see, I can almost feel the slobbery Cheeto dust splatter against my cheek as my assassin screams "NOOOOOOB!!!" into the microphone, live from his parents' basement. The type of losers who make up the core of Xbox Live diminish its "play games with people around with world!" idealism into "get your ass handed to you by self-righteous fourteen year olds while their borderline-retarded nasally nerd banter turns your brain into mush!"

For all these reasons, I'm not much of an online gamer. But the good news is that while you may have to devote unGodly hours of your life to Xbox Live in order to be a formidable competitor, you only need a little bit of imagination to making losing fun on Xbox Live. Which brings us to...


Best Reason To Embrace Xbox Live:
Annoying The Shit Out of its 10 Million Users

Still the most fun I've had with online games since the days of dial-up, disrupting the activities of online gamers with "Xbox Live Terrorism" is the best way to turn your pitiful fragging skills into first-class entertainment. You can read some of my previous Xbox Live adventures here, but lately my weapon of choice has been taking on the personality of an aggressive, flaming gay guy. In a worryingly convincing over-the-top gay voice, I joined a game of Team Fortress the other day and ran around aimlessly, getting killed over and over again while I shouted obnoxious lispy pep-rally cheers to my teammates like "Okay boys, here we go, I'm fucking PUMPED, let's go shoot some fucking blue guys! Fuck yeah, red team is gonna kick some big blue BOOTY mofo! Are you fuckers READY?? I feel so big and masculine with my giant gun, you'd never know I was a bottom! It's all very phallic, don't you think??" It doesn't take long before one of them snarls at me to shut up, which is my invitation to get frisky: "Oooh, CrysisLord91, you're a fiesty one! You like to talk tough? You like to boss me around? Boss me around baby, I don't mind." This begets the inevitable juvenile bigotry, with irritated calls of "shut up faggot, we're trying to play a game!" My saucy gay alter-ego is unmoved, and continues to taunt them, eventually asking if any of them have had any homosexual thoughts, or tried "anal play:" "You boys all love the cock just as much as me, you just don't know it yet! Seriously boys, next time you're wanking to Hayden Panettiere Photoshopped nudes, try just sliding a finger up your little stinker. Just one - start with your pinky, if you're scared, but just try it, and then tell me I'm not onto something!" The key is to not stop talking, and to get increasingly annoying and sexually confrontational - especially when challenging their masculinity. Before long, my whole team was screaming at me furiously, telling me to "get AIDS and die, homo!" I'm not even kidding. If I could just fucking figure out a way to record audio from an Xbox Live headset, the resulting podcasts would be nothing short of epic.


Most Blatant Attempt To Cash In On Another Game System's Success:
The White PS2

If the aforementioned Sixaxis controller wasn't enough evidence of Sony's Wii envy, the company sunk to a new low last year when they redesigned the PS2 with a suspiciously familiar aesthetic. Take a look at these unaltered official product photos and see if you can figure out what they're going for:



I guess white is the new black, and with PS3 selling about as well as Bosom Buddies, The Complete Second Season Boxed Set, Sony wanted its older, cheaper, more family-friendly PS2 to hold as much appeal as possible to consumers who couldn't find the sold-out Wii. The result was the... PS...Twii? A shamelessly derivative system design, right down to the blue highlights on the box. At least the widespread rumors of a PSP redesigned with a touch screen didn't pan out... yet.


Ugliest Avatars In A Shitty Wii Game:
Carnival Games


Like pet simulators on the DS, mini-game collections have become the popular genre for developers to shit out on the Wii, trying to cash in on the success of Wii Sports. The Wii Sports model demands that each of these shitty mini-game collections allow you to customize an in-game avatar to represent yourself, and the wiser games simply use Nintendo's popular, built-in Mii avatars. Miis are cute, highly customizable, and every Wii player already uses one, so it only makes sense for games to allow people to use the silly digital versions of themselves they've already grown accustomed to, right? Well, not if you're Electronic Arts, whose lame mini-game bonanza Playground utilizes its own set of characters, which are pretty fucking shitty-looking in a "Burger King Kid's Club" sort of way. But outdoing them by far are the hideous avatar monstrosities used in Global Star Software's Carnival Games.

I was dumb enough to buy the bargain-priced, kid-friendly Carnival Games on a whim, because the lure of virtual skee ball was simply too great. Sadly, it turns out nothing can replace real skee ball, least of all a shoddy, boring game with ass-tastic motion controls. But what stood out as the shittiest, and downright weirdest element of Carnival Games was its attempt at a custom avatar system, featuring some of the most off-putting character designs I've ever seen. In trying to craft a virtual person to represent yourself from Carnival Games' palette of baggy-eyed mongoloids and clothing from the discount rack of the Salvation Army thrift store, you'll find it's near impossible to come up with anything that doesn't look straight out of an Oklahoma trailer park.

If you tell the game you're an adult male, for example, you'll find most of the options look like your creepy drunk uncle who always made you sit on his lap uncomfortably long at family gatherings:


Look at how ugly those things are! You're meant to adorn these hillbilly creatures with your own name, but the only appropriate names seem to be Jimbo, Cletus, and Billy Ray. Curiously though, your only hairstyle option is a Jewfro, so the very best-looking avatar I was able to create looked something like a pre-muscles Carrot Top after a bender:


As a woman, you'll find it difficult to escape looking like a pear-shaped country singer with a face permanently frozen in "durrrrrrr."


And the children, naturally, look like the results of fetal alcohol syndrome as styled by Willy Wonka:


I'm not sure if the developers of this game were trying to be funny when they made these, or if it's just an epic exercise in bad taste, but either way the result is so hideous and unpleasant that you'll want to stop playing the game just so you don't have to look at yourself. Next time, please just let us use our Miis.


Most Dreaded Sight For Gamers:


The infamous, much-feared Red Ring of Death, which signals the end of your Xbox 360's short life span. By some unholy miracle, this affliction has not yet befallen my two year old Xbox, though many friends have seen its cold stare, so evocative of 2001's HAL 9000 that it almost seems to say, "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Dave."

Christ, you know, you think you come up with something witty, and then you realize not only did someone else think of it first, but they've already made a fucking t-shirt out of it. Fucking internet!

Anyway, such was the prevalence of dreaded red rings, and the resulting outcry, that Microsoft was forced to offer free repairs on any dead systems, costing the company one billion dollars. That'll teach you to rush a poorly-constructed, untested piece of junk hardware onto the market just so you can claim the first next-gen console, douchelords.


The Demonbaby Embarrassing New Low In Video Games Award For 2007:
Deal Or No Deal for Nintendo DS


Deal Or No Deal is a television game show of stunning banality - and while banality is nothing new to television, the overwhelming popularity of Deal is what makes it particularly tragic and offensive. This is a game show that asks absolutely nothing of its participants, short of trying to win money by randomly choosing boxes held by attractive women. It asks far less of its millions of viewers, who sit zombified watching passively as complete strangers try to win money by randomly choosing boxes held by attractive women. At least other game shows ask trivia questions, allowing the home viewer to participate (in a decidedly non-participatory manner) by trying to answer them. Here, there is profoundly, magnificently nothing: No interactivity, no thought, no creativity - just an hour of your life spent utterly idle, while your brain silently rots away. So when I repeatedly saw the show's portable video game adaptation mentioned across the internet as a true abomination of gaming, of course I had to check it out.

As you can imagine, I find it deplorable that anyone would want to play a game based on this vapid show. If any enjoyment is to be found in the television version, I imagine it has something to do with the personalities of the host and contestants, or at least hot chicks holding briefcases. But none of that is present in Deal Or No Deal for Nintendo DS, save in the most primitive of pixelized recreations. In fact, if Deal's chrome-domed host Howie Mandell is ugly in real life, his low-resolution polygonal counterpart is downright terrifying. Sometimes he looks like a villain from a James Bond movie, holding his sausage fingers together sadistically as he awaits your demise:


Other times, he looks more like gay German fashion designer:


In either situation, he's the only entertaining aspect of this miserable game, which simply asks you to tap randomly on boxes, and see what number is inside. It's a slow, monotonous process, which awards you only repetitive soundbytes of Howie Mandell reminding you that lots of money is good and not a lot of money is bad. There is of course no money to win - and no challenge to be had, and no achievement to be felt. Just dumb, dumb luck. Or, it should be dumb luck, but as this gloriously hate-filled review of the game warned me, you can actually guess exactly which case has the million dollars, because the game doesn't properly randomize the contents! You have a game involving zero skill, and zero gameplay, requiring nothing more than simple guesswork, and the developers of this suck-fest even managed to fuck that up! It's an impressive achievement in failing at the most basic task of game development: To make a retardedly simple guessing game based on a retardedly simple guessing TV show. This game is mind-numbing, pointless, and broken, and a no-brainer for the Demonbaby Embarrassing New Low in Video Games award for 2007. If this game holds any appeal for you, I might suggest a more fun and productive game: It's called cut your wrists with a very sharp knife and see how long you can remain conscious.