February Bum Poo Wee Games Reviews

Another excellent drubbing for Superlola, sounds like proper misguided tosh but at least these reviews are entertaining.

I got a good laugh at that last picture as well, good stuff Rum.

So, this didn't plan out quite how I wanted.  Originally, like a couple of you folks, I used random numbers to pick myself an awful game, and initially I was pleased with my choice.  To my horror, it turned out to be only slightly below average!  That's no good for a roasting!  I was devastated.

The original game:

I tried playing the random number game again, restricting it to under 40, and got Tennis; but from the snippets on Metacritic, that just seemed to be lacking in features rather than bad.  At that point, I thought - sod it, go big or go home.  I went big.




When I fired up this 17-Metascore delight, with a pint of 'gin liqueur' and tonic to ease the pain, I was greeted by chirpy jazzy music and a winged ball with eyes.  'Hi, I am a fairy "Cochin"!' it said.  'Are you the first time to play this game?'  That's when I knew I was onto a winner.  To be fair to the Vroom in the night sky team, according to the 'Credit' there are five of them total, and it's clear that none of them were translators.  The rest of my experience would suggest that they weren't graphic artists or games designers either.  

I skipped the tutorial and plunged straight into this choice offering: by which I mean, I did what any sensible gamer does and went straight to Config.  The game had been proudly talking up its HD Rumble capabilities on the eShop screen, so I turned it from 'Normal' to 'Violent'. I decided not to change the buttons so that B was 'OK' and A was 'NO' because I'm not an absolute monster.

Onto the stage select, then, since I didn't fancy 'learning driving technique' in the 'Driving School'.  There are eight levels, although initially only 'Night Sky of the Lovely' is available.  Picking the only motorcycle currently unlocked, the Magical Scooter 50 (and turning it pink because I'm a magical girl!), I finally got into the meat of the game, and what stunning meat it is.



I know the words 'looks like N64 visuals' get thrown around a lot, but in the trees' case that would be unfair to the N64.  This looks like someone tried to use a PS1 to recreate some lumpy crap stuck to a lolly stick.  Nonetheless, too many at once clearly exhausts the poor game, resulting in egregious pop-up and fade-in across the otherwise empty levels.  Otherwise we have a flat green plane playing the role of 'grass', and a night sky background that phones it in more than a desperate priest calling a sex line.  At least my girl Luna (or maybe Tsuki?) looks nice enough.

That's where the niceness ends.  After a bit I realised that you press B to accelerate and A to brake, because somebody involved in this game was an absolute monster. 'Accelerating' is putting is nicely, mind - your motorbike potters through the sky at an excruciating pace relative to course size.  That timer on the shot above is almost representative: in the first level, it took me three minutes to drive through five gold tokens suspended in an empty sky.  I've had faster walks through a crowded Sainsbury's while trying to social-distance.  

The much-touted 'HD' Rumble does its best to compensate for the apparent lack of speed by roaring the entire time.  That's not HD Rumble folks.  If your TV screen is flashing red and white until you get a seizure that doesn't make it 4k.  It was a little better when I turned it down to Normal, but still hummed constantly, much like the game; and it didn't stop the constant engine noise from doing its best to blot out the music.  Not that you're missing much, mind, because the same song plays on all of the first five levels.  It's so forgettable I didn't realise until level 4.

The objective of the level is to drive your slow humming skybike into the gold tokens hanging in the air, opening the 'Magical Gate': driving through this ends Luna's suffering.  No context is ever provided, and at least in the first three levels, there are no obstacles in the sky to make this more than 'point the bike, hold B, drink to forget'.  In addition, as the ever-present Cochin says, 'There might be a stardusts.'  These are grey crystals that maybe you're meant to hoover up as well, but you also seemed to get more 'stardusts' for finishing the levels quickly, and I wasn't up for working out the risk-reward dynamics on this dog turd of an experience.  The collision detection seemed to have drunk more gin than I had: flying Luna's entire height below a token picked it up anyway.  So that was nice.

(A side note: your bike runs on 'Magical Gasoline'.  'Magical Gasoline'.)

Following on from 'Night Sky of the Lovely' was 'Night Sky of the Quiet Desert' (complete with polygonal skulls that, again, would make the N64 blush), and if you thought the above sounded exciting you ain't seen nothing yet.  I was 4/10 tokens into the level when...



It's your rival Teruko-chan!  She's here to steal the stardusts!  OH MY GOOOOOOOD[/troll2]

As mentioned above, I wasn't really concentrating on the stardust.  After I'd picked up my ten tokens without seeing her, though, I thought I'd go back and find out what she was up to.  She was banging into a rock.  Repeatedly.  A couple of levels later I'd repeat the trick, to find her banging into a curb.  A curb on a street.  To repeat: your bikes can fly.

Teruko's appearance does open the way for even more wonderful dialogue.  I've included some of the best moments below (also a snorter from the bike shop):

Spoiler:

I say 'best', and while there's obviously some sarcasm there the dialogue (and bike descriptions) do have a weird charm to them, in an 'A WINNER IS YOU' kind of way.  Like a dog that's shat all over the carpet rolling over for a belly rub, probably in its own shit.  Trouble is, they repeat.  They repeat a lot.  Luna must have asked 'Who made magical bike?' at least ten times in playthrough.  The factory level, which I only played once, saw the 'coff coff' exchange above repeat three times.  At this point the dog's bowels have exploded over two other rooms, the smell is unbearable, and the roll isn't cutting it any more.

I unlocked five of the eight levels through playing them one after the other, but the last three remained firmly locked to me.  At this point, I thought I might as well try out the 'Driving School'.  Turns out the game has a bit more depth than I'd given it credit for (at this point in the analogy, the dog's shat in the bathtub).  You can fire missiles at your rival (no aiming required, natch), dash, do handbrake turns, or perform 'Magical Girl Turning' which... I'm still not sure what it is.  Eventually I met the objective by chance, through hammering accelerate and wiggling the stick like a madman.  Top design.

The stardust rewards from the 'lessons' allowed me to buy the second-fastest bike, which unlocked the later stages.  At this point the game actually improved a bit: the boosted speed of the bike, combined with some actual different level music, at least potty-trained the dog to some extent.  None of that is an excuse for the last level, 'Night Sky of Chaos': the level 'designer' threw random bits of scenery from the other levels into a cityscape, doubled the number of star tokens, and sacked off for lunch.  Of course I got nothing for clearing all the levels, because the entire game has 'sacked off for lunch' energy writ large all over it.

There's a part of me that worries that this isn't just the low effort cop-out it looks like - that these five people maybe thought they really could make the game of their dreams, and this sorry excuse is it.  That's a terrible thought.  Better to assume that this is just laziness - the sort of laziness that leads people to use 'Magical Gasoline' sincerely.  

Despite some occasionally amusing Engrish, this really is terrible.  It's worse than that Troll 2 scene; it's almost definitely the worst game I've ever played.  The best thing about it is that the Joy-Con, with 'HD Rumble' set to Violent and Luna vrooming through the night sky, could give someone one hell of an orgasm.

Great write up, I do feel kinda sorry for it though as I'm tempted to say it could genuinely be oblivious devs rather than a lazy game. It does sound as shoddy as I expected it to though, looks like a broken PS1 game and sounds like it plays like one too.

That's my slight worry.  It feels a bit sincere, you know?  Games like Flingsmash come from a big company that can take a kicking, and games like Superola seem so cynical that you don't mind putting the boot in.  I had a terrible time with Vitns, but it's the work of five people and it feels sincere.

That doesn't stop the last level, at least, from being massively lazy.

I will get to mine eventually but from what I have played it's average, sooner it worse in talking else in a Wand of Gamelon way as least it be funny.

In the meanwhile, what did you think of everyone else's stuff Mas?

I wouldn't worry about putting the boot in Balla, rubbish is rubbish and you're not the first person to do it either. I also think they'd be more worried about what the likes of Nintendo Life, IGN or GameSpot say than GNamer.

Yeah, that game was still bad, even with a smaller dev team, and I chortled a lot with that review!

Exactly, there is no need for arguing.

I will get round to trying mine eventually, but I just about have enough time to play the games I want to play at the moment. Also I worry that mine got a 49 I think, so it might be slightly disappointing. However, it's a treat for NGamer veterans...

I know, I know.  It's seemingly not like they'd even be able to read my review.  And it was properly bobbins. (Glad you enjoyed the review Jim!)

Jimbob wrote:

Exactly, there is no need for arguing.

This may need to be a tagline somewhere down the line.

If anyone is looking for potential future Bum Poo Wee games our old friend Qubic games is having another sale if you own one of their games bringing some games down to as little as 15p. Can't say for sure if they're bad or not but I'm betting a few might be duffers.

https://qubicgames.com/17/

What are you talking about Smurf? Jumping Joe & Friends is clearly a hidden gem that's WORTH SEVEN POUNDS.

That's one of the many games I got for free from them, you'll be surprised to hear I've never played it and had to actually check to make sure I had it.

Qubic publish some good games to be fair. Of what I have...

The good:

Akane, One Strike, Mana Spark

The OK:

Robonauts, Shipped, Akuto Showdown (demo)

The bad:

Coffee Crisis, Wonder Shot

Oh yeah I know they do some decent stuff, definitely no disrespect intended but at 15p a pop they're probably worth a go either way.

Alternatively...

A small nudge for Jim and Mas, wondering how they're getting on a week later? That's the only nudging I'll be bothering with: I understand if neither of you want to spend your precious time on shoddy games!

You will have to wait until I have time. Time is short and real life is encompassing.

I will try and give my game a go once I've finished Mario Galaxy.

I remember reading someone's review of Vroom in the Night Sky back during the Switch's launch period - I want to say it was Scullion - and remember thinking "christ, I'm never playing that then!" I see that not much has changed. Coff coff, indeed.

Coff coff.

Sorry, this is a bit late, but, as much as I can be bothered to play it for review, I now have disappointing opinions on


This had a 49 on MetaCritic, so it was unlikely to be shoeing-worthy, just disappointing - and that sums it up I think.

Although "not for me" (as a miserable grown-up) the original Drawn to Life games on the DS seemed like a really good idea for the kids - a platform adventure where you get to design what everything looks like! I would have loved that as a littl'n, despite not being able to draw then or now. What are those games most famous for in these parts? Got to be NGamer. Castle couldn't draw either, introducing the iconic character of Sad Bear, who would traverse using the occasional Springy Lazy (which one assumed was a trampoline, but was rendered as a black rectangle with the word "Lazy" written on it.

Assuming this new game picked up where that left off, I tried to find my inner kid - maybe that 49% is just full the opinions of soulless adults who think that children should be seen and not heard, and actually it's still great for the right audience?

No

Well, after the opening menu and the intro (first complaints: D pad doesn't work on menus, character speech in intros doesn't make a lot of sense from sentence to sentence) you get to design what your character looks like. Initially I tried with the Pro Controller on the TV - this was absolutely bloody painful. So I switched out to handheld mode, and risked the world-famous Joy-Con Drift. Certainly being able to poke the screen where you'd like to draw was a lot better but... have you ever tried to use the Switch Touchscreen with any kind of fine accuracy? Oh no. No this is not good at all. Desperately trying to put a pupil in an eye, and creating a superfluous nostril instead.

There are also template characters of cats, robots and generic Cool Dudes, for people who have literally no imagination. It's got to be sad if someone goes into this and decides to not draw their own hero. Having said that, at least they'd look neat. One thing's for sure - they didn't draw those in game.

What would my character be?

No - I can't put this guy through this shit:

The Great One Returns! But he's not mine:

Hey! This guy's going to be the main character in my next project - it's Gear Gator, the gear gater:

As you can see, the bits don't really line up. Another thing I noticed at this point: there are loads and loads of stickers to unlock it seems, arm and leg designs, that sort of thing. It really seemed like a lot of options to help bolster the first thing you drew. And anyway, why would you want to keep adding stuff to your main dood?

Back into the game then. And your fox-eared friend (oh - two realms: Earth and another place with animal people - don't worry about it) says that you can go into the minds of people are cure the evil shadow thoughts that are happening because of an evil shadow guy. Wow. OK. That's jumped a bit. Of course, if you are any sort of gamer ( ) your first thought would be Psychonauts. In that game, the crazy worlds inside people's minds reflect their current trauma, be it a conspiracy theorist with a head full of suburbs and spies, or a former child actor with emotional troubles with a stage flip-flopping between comedy and tragedy. What does each person's possessed mental dystopia look like then?

A set of generic 2D platform levels.
Don't get this at all - the themes of the levels have nothing to do with the current issue playing out with the characters and the story. When I played, I saw 2 backgrounds to these levels ("grass world" and "city at night"). Most were simple "reach the door" affairs, but occasionally you'd be responsible for building the level partially - in as much as placing down enemies so you can strategically bounce off them to get to the end. This could be an interesting idea, but this always, in any game, not as interactive as the developer imagines it is, and just slows down the game even further. And when do I get to draw another thing?

Nothing quite makes sense in terms of how people are acting, before or after you "fix" them. Your human companion is late getting to the shop to meet his sister; she gets really angry with him; you "fix" her; she is less angry. Then a shopkeeper comes out of nowhere and accuses your lad of stealing some stickers; he didn't; you "fix" the shopkeeper; he apologises and offers everyone a discount on stickers, and forgets about finding out who actually stole from his shop. Then it's bed time.

Then I went to the town square and a new set of levels appeared and then immediately flicked off after the prompt to start the first level and I was back on the map screen and introduced to the Big Bad, in a weird overworld with a lot of weird desert-y bits. I think that was a bug.

At this stage I switched it off and went to read a review of the game before thinking about starting again - to be honest it was already feeling very repetitive, and I needed to know when something else would happen. NintendoLife had the scoop, courtesy of the almighty Kate Gray OBE. Well apparently there's only one other type of platform level - and it's an escort mission. And crucially, you don't get to draw anything else - just your main character.

Well I'm not wasting my time on this any more, not even to see what happens in the end. It's not remotely interesting enough to even scowl at.

/

I'm a little disappointed about this - I had this new Drawn To Life on my eShop's wishlist. It's fair comment that the Drawn To Life games are " not as interactive as the developer imagines it", but I'm curious about why they've bothered to revive it if they've got no new ideas for it. The title seems like a bit of a con too, especially if there's hee-haw drawing after the start and if it's all wrapped round such a lifeless platformer. I guess you can't just release a game called 'To', but even so, did they need to make and release this at all?

I enjoyed that review for it's helpfulness as much as it's baw-bootin'! 

Wow. Fair play to you Jim for sticking with it as long as you did.  I'd completely forgotten Castle's adventures with Sad Bear! Thanks for bringing those back. The game itself sounds like the gaming equivalent of watching your liquefied brain dribble out of your nose. Drip drip.

I actually quite liked the original Drawn to Life as there was something quite fun about drawing new bits of the level and making hideous creations as you progress. It sounds like the latest version has none of that joy hidden within it.

It was just so boring. Like, not in a "so bad it's good" way...

It might not be the game Balla gave me (I will get to it), yet this one I finished last night has on Metacritic a 50 PS5, 46 PS4, 46 PC, 43 XSX and 33 Switch with a 49 on Opencritic (minus 15 points).

Meaning on paper it's not very good and why I'm posting here and not in the regular last game just finished thread, that makes sense right? Well I'm going to have to disagree on the scores for this one as after 14.5hrs according to my Series X, I finished...


Yes I bought Balan after seeing the Xbox version just appear out of nowhere and managing to get for £27, I feel at 14.5hrs I got my moneys worth and will likely get me a decent trade in on Monday, local game shop, got a few things in and trying to push being back open with unusual items.

I will trade it in as I'm done with the story and that's enough for me, sure I could be one of 6 people according to Trueachievements to get the 1000g as Balan does have replay value such as find all statues that sort of thing. I'm not really an in game collector and these won't really unlock anything from what I can tell.

You might be thinking how does it play well fine as to me, it's sort of what I wanted from the game. As in, it feels like a Saturn/Dreamcast maybe pushing to Cube with Billy Hatcher game but with "modern" graphics.

Sure games have moved on since Nights in 1996 and Balan could have more quality of life improvements, yet I still had a fun time playing Balan and if you went into it not expecting Mario Odyssey but maybe something along the lines of Super Lucky at a push then you will have a good time.

As the levels and how the powers of the costumes are used is neat to progress through them, the music is good, bosses look cool and the cutscenes are top-notch.