Seriously, why do I buy crappy games? Am I looking for a diamond in the rough? Is it the guilty pleasure of a forbidden fruit? Do I just want a few quick achievements? Probably a combination of the three, but for whatever reason I find myself drawn like a fly to honey by crappy games. It would be one thing if I bought them thinking that they would be good, but then they turn out to suck, but I buy games knowing full well in advance that they totally blow. Just in the past few weeks I've bought The History Channel's Civil War: A Nation Divided, King Kong, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, Viva Pinata: Party Animals, Bullet Witch, and Transformers: The Game. I think I finally hit rock bottom on Saturday though when I bought Beowulf: The Game.
I bought Beowulf thinking that it would be some C-grade God of War clone. Instead what I got was a game so stunningly bad that it left me breathless. I know it's game based on a crappy movie, but still how could it be this bad? It's like instead of making a God of War ripoff, they decided to make a game that shows how not to make a God of War ripoff, by doing everything intentionally wrong. The very first thing you fight in the game is a bunch of giant crabs. These are pretty much the lamest enemies ever because they're so low to ground anyway, it's hard to tell whether or not they've been knocked down. Which is another really lame thing, once something has been knocked down, you can't hit it anymore until it gets back up. And sometimes it takes 3-4 seconds for it to get back up. So you're thinking "Okay, that guy's dead" then all of sudden he jumps back on his feet and starts attacking you again!
But anyway, once you get past the boring giant crabs and some awful Tomb Raider type ledge-jumping (made even more awful by the fact that if you don't time your jumps just right, you fall and have to do it over again) you get to "enjoy" the most awful boss fight ever put in an action game. Giant sea serpents, hey that sounds like a slam-dunk! Oh wait, you have to hit them like 4-5 times and then go into QTE mode to finish them off. Wonderful.
Oh but that's not the last of the QTE action! Seems our boys really had a hard-on for rhythm games because almost every 5 minutes you have to do a lame little DDR segment to advance the story. Help you men row the boat by shouting at them in time! Help your men move a rock by shouting at them in time! Apparently shouting "Ya!" "Hooha!" and "For glory!" at your men in time gives them superhuman strength. It's also superhumanly lame. Just like the crappy as hell combat which pretty much consists of hitting the X button as much as you can. Until you wear out your sword which happens every 30 seconds and have to go run around and find a sword rack with another one on it. Your guys will keep the enemies occupied in the meantime, that's pretty much all they do. They will engage any enemy they see, but pretty much not really do any actual damage to them. So basically if you can't find an ememy, just look for a group of 4-5 of your guys swinging their swords, and rush into the middle of them mashing that X button. I think I should have just saved my $20 and put it towards Conan.
