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by Vivendi Universal
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Mediocre,
average, common, passable. There are probably a few other synonyms I
could use if I had a bigger thesaurus on my desk. I have never played a
game that felt so unispired or so derivative. There is absolutely
nothing about this game that would cause it to spark even the slightest
memory of having played it. I played the game a couple of days ago and
Im having a hard time remembering the fact that I actually spent enough
time with it to render a severe and harsh judgement. In fact, I keep
finding myself picking up the game and saying, "I need to get around to
playing that game. Shawns going to need a review soon." I put the game
in my Game Boy, and after a few minutes, I realize that its not the
first time Ive played it. This is especially confusing because the
first time I played the game, it felt like I had played it before.
Unfortunately, we live a world that rewards mediocrity (just look at
ABCs Tuesday night line-up). We spend millions of dollars to read
stories weve already read, watch movies that weve already seen and
play games that weve already played. For those who like comforting
routines, Butt Ugly Martians: B.K.M (Butt Kicking Mode) Battles will be
like coming home.
I am not very
familiar with the actual franchise, but I know that anything with a
title like Butt Ugly Martians must be wildly popular. Perhaps it is
because the franchise is so successful that the developers felt little
need to create a game that was barely passable in the annals of gamedom.
The game basically consists of flying one of three Butt Ugly Martians
through caverns, blowing up turrets and enemy robots along the way.
Theres nothing the least bit compelling about the gameplay. Eventually
you will have a bigger boss at the end of a level that youll have to
shoot a bunch of times to blow up. Youre able to alternate between the
Martians on the flyone has more firepower, one is quicker, and one has
better defenses.
The work of
developing a game seems to fall into two categories. In the one category
we have developers striving to develop interactive experiences that
cause us to reevaluate what video gaming is all about. These developers
are responsible for games like Tony Hawk, Seaman, Shenmue and Mario. The
other category of developers takes the ideas of the originators and puts
their own characters/franchise into them. I like to call them the cut
and paste masters of game development. They ask questions like, "What if
we did a game like Super Mario, but with a crocodile?" Like most TV
producers, they want to spoon feed audiences exactly what they know they
want.
BUMBKMB is
the epitome of the cut-and-paste mentality. Everything about this game
from the controls, to the caverns, to the generic turrets seems to come
out of other, much better games. For someone who hasnt played many
videogames before, this might not be very noticeable, but Ive been
playing videogames for nearly a quarter of a century now and its hard
not to see just how unoriginal and uninspired this product is.
Even though
the game is incredibly derivative, it accomplishes all that it sets out
to do. Its not quite as fast or furious a side scrolling shooter as
weve come to expect, but it should prove mildly entertaining for most
gamers. Fans of the series will probably be more than content over the
prospect of being able to play as one of their favorite little Martians.
And for those who think that there can never be enough versions of
Pac-Man, this game will be Nirvana.
Jason Frank (11/17/2002) |
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Snapshot
Ups:
Butt Ugly Martians; decent action all-around.
Downs:
Very derivative gameplay and design; nothing new
here; gets boring.
Platform:
Game Boy Advance
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