Fuck
this game.
The
end.
No,
really. I don't want to write this. Anubis II is a game so
horrendous, it has made me catatonic! It happened right after I
screamed on top of my lungs. I type the best I can with my hands, as
they're the only part of me that is still moving. All things
considered, I'm lucky. Though my parents feed me through a straw-
Oh,
who am I kidding. Of course I'm not catatonic. In shock at such a
horrible game, sure, but not catatonic. In shock? Close, but not quite. Actually, I
think that witnessing this horror has made me insane; it has awakened something deep inside me that I never wanted to see out, and I'm soon
going to go kill something to appease my spirit. A fly or two, an iguana, maybe a cat... And I cannot use video games to get that out of
my system, as video games are the source of my insanity. I cannot
touch a Wii remote anymore, I just want to stab someone with it.
Don't ask me how I'd do that.
Ah,
and dammit. I need to get this out of my system. Maybe talking about
the game will calm me down.
So...
Anubis II was a game made in 2007 by Metro 3D. It has been released
on the PlayStation 2 and on PC. Data Design Interactive later bought Metro 3D and saw fit to re-release their titles, by adapting them for the Wii (even though it was pretty damn obvious they were of a low quality). Anubis II shares many
similarities with other titles released by DDI around that time, such as Ninjabread
Man, Myth Makers: Trixie in Toyland, or Rock'n'Roll Adventures. Never
heard of those? You're lucky.
Anubis
II takes place in Ancient Egypt. The evil skeleton pharaoh Mumm'Hotep
reigned with an iron fist, until he was defeated. Years later, he is
back, and has spread darkness across the land. The inhabitants of
Ancient Egypt have a hero, however – Anubis, the *ahem* "mighty" God of the
underworld! Armed with his scepter, the God has to travel through six
long levels, defeat the forces of evil, collect eight golden pyramids in each level to bring back the world's peace... and end it all in a brutal fight
against Mumm'Hotep!
Let's give that to this game, at least Mumm'Hotep looks fine... just like a cheap animatronic in a haunted house for kids! Fakeness and broken mechanism included! |
Here's
an alternate storyline for this game: A game developer goes to take a
dump and then decides to make a game of similar quality to what he's just
released. He makes every level in a matter of minutes with a cheap
game engine, and takes a 30-minute break to watch porn between every
level. After one day – no, scratch that; half a day – he has
completed a little game that would be alright if he shared it with
his friends... and then realizes he could just send it to a stupid
game company. Said stupid game company decides it's of good enough
quality to be published and distributed across North America and
Europe. Oh, and then he makes a carbon copy of that same game, only
changing the character and some of the graphics, and sends it to the
same stupid game company, which releases that one too. Because
they're fucking stupid.
I'm
feeling really crazy. I want to smash something. Just give me a few
minutes... I'll go outside, destroy the neighbor's house with my
father's tractor, and come back for the rest of this review. ...Oh,
wait. Of course not. I'm not really insane, it's all make-believe for
the review. Truth is, the plot to Anubis II was tacked on and is told
only in the instruction booklet; there is literally no story in this
game unless you read the booklet. Also, I'd have figured as such; any
storyboard artist would have left at the Tutorial level.
So...
How does Anubis II work? You control the jackal Anubis with the
joystick on the Nunchuk. He jumps when you lift the Nunchuk, and can
double jump if you lift the Nunchuk twice in a row. This doesn't work
very well, however, as you need to be able to control Anubis while
doing that movement, and it's a pain in the ass. In fact, controlling
Anubis is a pain. Thankfully, you can use the Z button instead; it
works way better. As for his attacks? He can swing his scepter around
to attack enemies. You swing the Wii remote to do that. Also,
Anubis can throw energy balls; you target an enemy with the remote and press B when
the crosshair changes color near it, and then you can press B
numerous times to shoot a load of bombs and destroy the enemy
quickly. It's the best weapon in the game, because swinging the
scepter doesn't work what, maybe 60% of the time? By the way, he's
not throwing energy balls; he's tossing the essence of the game Anubis II, a
plague powerful enough to kill enemies and severely injure or depress normal
people. Also, he can swing his scepter upwards near some stones
marked with the Eye of Anubis, which will activate their magic power
and move some platforms around, letting him cross the levels. That,
too, doesn't work about 60% of the time. You have to try again
repeatedly. Pray there are no enemies around... There is one final
thing Anubis can do: When he has picked up a bomb, he can throw it if
you push A and hold it while making a tossing movement. Guess what?
THAT, TOO, DOESN'T WORK MOST OF THE FUCKING TIME!
It worked now? It's gonna stop working at the worst moment. |
Hey,
Anubis: You know what you can do with your scepter? Here are some
hints: It involves a part of your anatomy, it involves shoving, and
best of all, it involves lots and lots of pain for you. Oh wait, I
think I can help. Bend over. Get on all fours, bitch. I promise it's
not going to hurt. It's going to REALLY HURT.
"Woof, woof, bark, bark, arf, arf! I mean.... Arrooooooooo!" He's trying to speak! Quick, someone bring him a muzzle! |
THOSE PYRAMID MONSTERS... HOLY CHRIST! ...And that's what our hero looks like in pain? He looks like he is having another kind of powerful experience... |
Seriously,
I feel like strangling the closest thing I can find. Come here,
Valentine, my dear dog... Nico isn't going to hurt you, he just needs
to release some stress... by snappING YOUR NECK...
What?
Oh, I would never do that in my entire life! I really like my dogs! Where did that come from?? No! Video games do not push to violence... No! They... don't...
shouldn't... Urge to kill rising... rising... Hm, if my urge to kill
really gets out of hand, maybe I could go look for members of the
GamerGate movement... No! Humans are off limits! When it comes to
killing, EVERYTHING is off-limits, except for things that aren't
real, like video game characters! My... logical brain... is clashing
with... my morals... it's... Help me...
Tssk,
you really believed that? Fiction doesn't make one go insane so
easily! ...I hope. No, when faced with something like... this, I
actually tend to get prone to depression. I feel extremely saddened
that such an awful game exists.
The pain will start in 3... 2... 1... OOOOOWWWWWWWW! |
And
then there are the six normal levels – oh, I mean, one Tutorial
level, and five levels. In the Tutorial level, you learn the
controls, and then you see how the levels work: You have to collect a
number of items. ...That's it. There's an arrow in the bottom left
corner indicating the direction in which you must go to reach the
next item. In the Tutorial, it's parchments; in the next levels, it's
golden pyramids floating above ground.
Okay,
so the other levels come in many variations. Once you beat them the
normal way, you unlock the new modes. There's Treasure Grab, Artifact
Hunt and Time Attack. I gave myself the pain of completing one level
in each of these modes to tell you how they work. No need to thank
me, I'll just... stay in my corner... and gently weep...
Treasure Grab mode has Anubis pick up an insane amount of objects across every level. 398? If you're crazy enough to try and pick them all up... Go ahead... But get ready to curse. A LOT. |
Also, there are plenty of checkpoints... But what the Hell is a red floating ball surrounded by a circling arrow doing in a game that takes place in ANCIENT EGYPT? |
Fall off that platform. Break your leg. Stay stuck there. Die alone. That's all you deserve. |
...Or
maybe not. It's really silly to get depressed because of a video
game, huh? What's next, once I'll have beaten Anubis II I will ascend
to the next level of evolution? Satan is going to call me and pretend
he was the maker of this game? ...I'm gonna get attacked by a man in
a cheap Anubis costume pretending to be the video game character? An
alien is going to contact me to stop the review? Mumm'Hotep will hack
into my broadcast to threaten me so that I have to give the game a
positive review? An alternate version of me from a universe where bad
is good and good is bad will appear to give me a beating unless I see
this game like he sees it – as a masterpiece?
Gosh,
what is it with reviewers and these ideas that bad fiction is
dangerous? Always coming up with new ways to have a bad work of
fiction come back to bite their asses at some point in the review.
…Don't get me wrong, bad fiction is awful. Bad films, bad comics,
bad games deserve to be made fun of, and their creators do too. And
it's a load of fun to see these sketches, these storylines added to a
review. But there is one thing I have learned through these repeated
attempts at a cheap storyline for this review of Anubis II: A game
like this is simply not worth it. It doesn't deserve a majestic
review with special effects and a plot. All it deserves is a good old
verbal beating. No parade, no wonderful storyline. Just discussing
this game and spewing insults at it is enough. It's not worth the extra effort.
Okay, maybe I DID put more effort in this review. There are about 4,000 words, a title card, two videos... Does that make me a hypocrite? Hey, at least I never worked on Anubis II... |
I'd
gladly call this game shit, but I'm afraid shit would sue me for
defamation and misrepresentation... Another example of how bad it is:
Just take a look at the final boss fight. It takes place after an
easy level, in which Anubis pushes three switches, one after the
other, to reach a mechanism that lets him gain access to the boss's
room. He faces Mumm'Hotep, who protects himself with a screen, so he can't be hit with the
scepter or with energy balls. And he tosses three energy ball
himself, every few seconds. Anubis has to go on the floating
platforms in the room, which have a tendency to disappear every few
minutes (I'm guessing the platforms are ashamed that Anubis is
stepping on them, so they vanish). Anubis has to pick up bombs on the
furthermost platforms, high above Mumm'Hotep, and then come down and
throw them at him. The controls to toss these bombs are not given
anywhere in the game, and they're not even in the booklet. I
personally had to search on Internet to find out. You have to stay at
a distance from Mumm'Hotep, then press A and swing like you're
tossing something. There are problems: Anubis swings too far (when
the bomb should land near Mumm'Hotep so that the explosion can hit
him), and thus the best place to throw the bomb is a corner of the boss's
room. But it's hard because of the shitty camera, the shitty
controls, the shitty view and the fact that Mumm'Hotep shoots energy
balls your way every few seconds. Still, after you manage to hit
Mumm'Hotep three times, the ground opens under him and he falls to
his doom. Anubis goes down that same hole, finds the lifeless body of
Mumm'Hotep, reaches the teleportation platform, and disappears, gone
with the ending, I guess. You heard right: There is no ending to this
game, just Anubis leaving.
I think the cutscene designers jumped out of the building from the third floor once they saw the overall quality of the product. That, or they all left during creation of the Tutorial level, making sure they had slammed the door hard behind them. I like to think that they left while brandishing two magnificent birds to all of their co-workers who were still stuck working on this.
What
happened to you, Data Design Interactive? You were decent in the
past! I heard you made some good games in the 90s! Sure, you can't
avoid making bad games every once in a while, humans make errors. I can't name a single video game company that has only released good games. But
THIS? Anubis II, Ninjabread Man, and the other shovelware you've been
releasing between 2005 and 2009 are just painful. Seriously, shame on
you, DDI. You are the first, and most likely only, time I break away
from my “don't insult the developers” rule. That you were merely adapting this shovelware game for the Wii is not an excuse. FUCK YOU, DDI. I'm
glad you went bankrupt and closed down in 2009. I hope it taught you a lesson: You don't make money with bad games. You lose the gamers'
trust when you make bad games that are intentionally put on the
market long before they're even ready, or when they're of such
piss-poor quality. You don't make money when you lose your public:
You make money by keeping it, by proving that you can make good
games. By making games worth buying, games that no one will toss to
the trash or bring back to the closest game store after a single
playthrough. Trust will make gamers come back to you and your games,
because they know you can release decent games and they'll look
forward for your next releases, because they trust your
products. Video games are an art form, you should not mess up with
games that classify as “quick bucks”. The face of Anubis II would
be on a Quick Buck if those were made for real! I think I spent more
time playing the game and writing this review than you spent making
this piece of crap of a game! Fuck shovelware!
Yes,
now crap can sue me for defamation and misrepresentation.
Anubis
II is, hands-down, the worst thing I have reviewed for Planned All
Along. Not the worst game; the worst thing, period. It's worse than
Pop-Up Pursuit; it's worse than Mario Party 2; it's worse than that
Gamer movie I keep punching on; it's worse than Bit Boy, ReelFishing: Ocean Challenge, Garfield: The Search For Pooky, Purr Pals,
Mario Pinball Land or even Castle of Shikigami III. It is the worst
thing I've reviewed for the site, and it will probably remain the
worst thing I've ever reviewed, years from now. I bought this game on
July this year, along with two more games that were the same price.
The other two games were a lot better. Heck, I usually try to review
the games I bought recently for later, and first do the ones I've
owned for a while, but I wanted to review this one as soon as fucking
possible so I could send it back to EBGames and forget about it. I
said during my review of the Gamer movie that I had never seen a game
that personally insulted me on a moral level. Well... now I have.
Thanks, Anubis II.
Why
is it so damageable? Because its a textbook example of what some
companies are ready to do for quick cash. They forget their
reputation. They forget the fans' trust in them. All that counts is
the money, the bloody money. Screw good games, we can make some in a
matter of days and then fill our pockets with the cash and tears of
unsuspecting young gamers! I strongly hate the companies who do this
kind of thing. They're the spawn of Satan's brother who is watching
over mankind's economy with an evil smile. Video game companies who
indulge in this practice just to increase their bottom line do not deserve our respect. Shovelwares,
obvious betas and other shit like this are a plague that should be
stopped, as they are a reason some people still do not see video
games as an art form or, I'd dare say, as anything with even a bit of
artistic value. Fuck you, Metro 3D. Fuck you, Data Design Interactive. Fuck you, whoever you are, if you've worked on this game, unless
you apologize. Fuck you, Anubis, fuck you, Anubis II, and fuck you,
whoever thinks that shovelware is a good idea.
Yes, giant mosquito: Suck all of Anubis' blood! KILL HIM. KILL HIM KILL HIM KILL HIM KILL HIM KILL HIM |
Destination: Trash Land. |
This
is it: The one game that has struck me on a moral level, so deep that
I will never forget how awful it was. The worst thing I've ever
reviewed.
Memories
of this game will stay in my head as long as I will play video games
and enjoy it.
Come
back next week for another review. Anything will be better than
Anubis II. Anything.
Anything.
No comments:
Post a Comment