I wanted to make a comment here.
I’ve been writing for GameCola for longer than I’ve been married. That just shows you selfish fuckers how dedicated I am to bringing you quality—if expletive-filled—reviews. However, I had to take this moment to share. My one-year anniversary was September 10th. Do you know what my wife surprised me with? That’s right: an Xbox 360. She pretty much doesn’t play videogames (unless it’s some blood-soaked nightmare that I make her play for “The Grass is Always…“), so this was very unexpected.
Besides showing you how cool that was, I also wanted to use this as an excuse as to why I’ve been playing nothing but Dead Rising, Call of Duty 2, Condemned, Saint’s Row and Perfect Dark Zero. Which brings us to this month’s review.
As I’m sure you know, Rare was bought up by Microsoft some years ago for an ungodly sum. The fanboys have been bellowing from the rooftops ever since, screaming that “Rare sucks now! They used to be so cool!” Well, after some research, I discovered the following newspaper article. Enjoy.
THE GAMECOLA DAILY
Saturday, September 30, 2006 A2
RARE NOT AS SUCKY AS SOME DIPSHITS THINK
BY TRAVIS COMBS
Staff Writer
PORTLAND, OR – Reports released today indicate that people who prematurely predicted the death of Rare, Ltd., are fucking stupid. In a study conducted by the Get Your Head Out of Your Ass Campaign, 87% of those polled were found to “not have any goddamn idea what the hell they were talking about.”
The whole debacle dates back to when Rare, Ltd., was on a roll in the Nintendo 64 era. They were basically superstars back then, with such hits as GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark and Donkey Kong 64. They could seemingly do no wrong. If they had been a basketball player, they would have been getting nailed every night by Alyssa Milano.
Then, according to some, the roof caved in.
Rare, Ltd., only had one semi-hit on the GameCube in the form of Star Fox Adventures before being sold off to Microsoft in 2002 for a then record-breaking $377 million. Since then, Rare, Ltd., has turned in only two games, the poorly-received Grabbed by the Ghoulies and Conker: Live and Reloaded. They led the Xbox 360 charge with two launch games, Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo: Elements of Power. This writer thinks you can all go to hell because both games were pretty cool. However, both sold below expectations and now Rare is the whipping boy for every blogger and “videogame expert” on the Internet. In this article, we’ll examine Rare’s last game for the Nintendo GameCube: Star Fox Adventures.
Star Fox Adventures started off as an N64 title simply called “Dinosaur Planet“. It was about…well, for shit’s sake, go reread the title of it. It’s about dinosaurs and planets, genius. Well, the game got bumped from the N64 to the GameCube when people realized the N64 was a $200 paperweight piece of shit cartridge-based crap-hole. Rare and Nintendo then met and agreed to squeeze two properties together: Star Fox and Dinosaur Planet. Voila. Star Fox Adventures.
The hate seemed to seep out of the walls almost immediately. Despite some glowing reviews, the game was instantly labeled a “Zelda clone”. Fuck that, and fuck the haters. This reporter is here to tell you that you need to take another look. Sure, Rare’s had some lame-ass games. Grabbed by the Ghoulies? Taboo? C’mon! But Star Fox Adventures is stunning. It’s a beautiful creation in its own right. As the game opens, you’re facing a humongous ship from behind your flying dinosaur in a complete torrential downpour. You’re a totally hot blue female fox (this game was made for furries!), and after you battle the ship for awhile, you’re tossed from your ride and your staff plummets to the ground, where it’s promptly found by Star Fox.
A lot of criticism leveled at the game seems to be anger that they would merge two different games, taking away both the uniqueness of Star Fox and Dinosaur Planet in the process. To that, THE GAMECOLA DAILY offers the following: BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! Are you fucking serious? Do you really cherish Star Fox that much that it pisses you off that Slippy the fucking Toad has been desecrated? That’s so stupid! It’s just…ah ha! Ah ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
THE GAMECOLA DAILY asked several of these self-proclaimed “videogame experts” why they hated Star Fox Adventures so much. “Well, it…it was so much like Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time.” was their response. When questioned as to why this irritated them so much, they claimed the following: “Well, GoldenEye rocked man! Yeah, it was no goddamn rip-off!” But, wasn’t that a first-person shooter, this reporter asked, noting that Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Marathon and several billion other FPS games had come out before. “It’s not the SAME!” they screamed at me before sobbing and running off, claiming they had something in their eye. This reporter remains unconvinced.
So, what it is that causes such amazing disgust in former fans of this once-great game developer? After thoroughly playing through this game, I came to several interesting conclusions:
- This game has simply gorgeous graphics. The water, the fur on the main characters, the day/night cycle…just beautiful.
- This game doesn’t just ape Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time; it holds it down and extracts its DNA forcibly.
- People who slam this game have never fucking played it. Period. The game is long, fun as hell, involving, good-looking, challenging and you get a dog-sized dino named Tricky to be your side-kick.
- You get to buy Tricky a ball. It has a star on it. You can throw the ball, and Tricky will play with it and retrieve it. Tricky will retrieve the ball, motherfucker. Keep your stupid Tamagotchi.
It is this reporter’s opinion that Star Fox Adventures is a casualty of downright stupid assumptions and fanboy freak-outs. It’s a solid adventure game with some great twists. Three years ago, this reporter was stuck in his apartment with his then-girlfriend due to an insanely intense ice storm for five straight days. It was a very, very small apartment. Star Fox Adventures quite possible saved that girl’s life. For that, it has earned my eternal gratitude.
So, after extensive research, this newspaper has concluded that people in general let public opinion sway their own opinion wayyyyy too much. I know we all wanted to see Rare fail simply because Microsoft bought them, but let’s not lose track of the big picture here. The reason Rare is in the hole they’re in is because the two games they made AFTER they were purchased, well, sucked. But I thought Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo were a return to arms, of sort. So haters, hate. This paper is looking forward to Viva Pinata, despite the fact that it looks exactly like Animal Crossing. Oh shit! They copied another game! Boo! Fuck Rare.
