Madcap's Game Reviews - "Pokemon Red, White, and Blue (An Unofficial PETA Parody)"

Brought to you by "Dear God, please pay attention to us!"

I won’t lie, sometimes it’s a joy to watch something collapse in on itself.  Like flan in a cupboard, like a dilapidated building dropping into a sinkhole piece by piece, we have PETA’s newest jab at not only the Pokémon series but at McDonald’s as well.  I’ll just go ahead and say that if they were trying to appeal to the demographic that Pokémon is intended for, they failed miserably.  I’ll also just go ahead and say that if they were trying to appeal to any other demographic besides the one that Pokémon is intended for, they failed miserably.  So, besides their own clique, I’m not really sure who this is supposed to be for besides stroking their own egos about what good little animal-friendly, environmentally conscious people they put on airs about being.

There’s a level of preachy like an After School Special, and then there’s this.  Some would call this a parody or a satire, but there’s nothing really satirical about it.  It’s very much boldfaced and quite happily demonizing both franchises with absolutely no subtly about it.

Or, y’know, humor.

But getting into the actual plot of the game, we are first asked a question.  If Pokémon were to come to the real world and see how we treat all those poor, innocent animals, would they love us as much as we’ve claimed to love them over the years?  They also take a few shots at how much the series hasn’t changed over the years, which I find rather humorous - and by that, I mean, not at all.  Join the club, PETA, we’ve all waiting for some distinctive change in the series since 1996.  Oh, and free tip, stay away from the Genwunners, they can really be spiteful.

Well, I'd advise them not the play anvilicious pieces of shit like this...

The story picks up with a Miltank being attacked by the Hamburglar bloodied up and wielding a crowbar.

…let me just let you process that while I go and get myself some more crazy pills.

The fight carries on for a bit, Hamburglar slurring angrily about how Miltank is owned by them and has no choice, and therefore has the right to beat her ferociously and then slaughter her for meat.  This is doubly hilarious because the Pokémon games and show have never depicted violence so graphically as this game does.  Miltank looks cut up and has dried blood across her body, the Hamburglar is similarly bloodied (heavily implied to be blood splatter from Miltank, obviously), and then Pikachu when he shows up he’s bandaged, collared, and has apparently had a large bite taken out of his ear!

It’s so over the top and ridiculous that I’m not really sure how anyone at PETA could see this as being taken seriously, at all. I certainly can't, no matter how hard I don't try...and believe me, I didn't even begin to try. This transitions into the player taking control of Pikachu (ha, see, PETA? I’m controlling an animal in your game!), where the four attacks that Pikachu gets are Slam, Charge Beam, “Protest”, and “Group Hug”, the latter two of which serve as your “Growl” and “Tail Whip” attacks.  The cheesiness continues with the flavor text for the battle, with such gems as “Pikachu beat down on the Mysterious Stranger with some powerful words” and “Pikachu smothered the Mysterious Stranger with a hug”.  No, really, I can’t make this up!

They also incredulously state that the main point of the Pokémon games is to teach children that Pokémon are property and that we have the right to force them to do whatever we want, which really couldn’t be more from the truth.  The only time any such ideas come up in any of the media are from groups like Team Rocket, i.e. the villains, who treat Pokémon in such a way and are defeated by the Player Character.  The main theme of Pokémon is that they’re supposed to be our friends and partners first and foremost.  It is with them that trainers achieve victory, working together to bring out the potential in both parties, human and Pokémon.

This game, however, makes it out to seem like Pokémon’s message – and a rather blatant message at that – is merely a sinister smokescreen over a vicious and evil plot to corrupt the minds of children into having no empathy for animals...while, all the while using a similiar medium in order to corrupt the minds of children into their own anvilicious belief system...

Huh. Irony.

Now you might ask is this is just stupidity? Not caring about the source material? Or PETA just trying to grasp at straws where the straws are made of the cocaine they've been snorting? The answer is yes.

But, after Pikachu cuddles the Hamburglar to death, he tells Pikachu of a horrifying world where animals are turned into people food! OH, THE HORROR!  Not believing that such a place could exist, Pikachu teams up with Miltank – who apparently can be named, something one does to a pet, right PETA? – to follow in the wake of their attacker through a magic portal.  But not before you can unlike a delightfully graphic video about the absolute horrors of animal farming.

Seriously, PETA, you made this for children?!

They arrive in that horrific land to a McDonald’s, complete with advertisements in the window from the Pokémon world, and Pikachu laments that McDonald’s is using his adorable image to sell their “death burgers”…and as I facepalm, he claims to want a lawyer…and I find myself wondering if it’s actually possible to facepalm all the way through one’s own head.

And at the McDonald’s, they meet a customer outside who rattles off my unfunny shots at the Pokémon franchise as though marketing and merchandising is some great evil that Nintendo is a perpetrator of.  Insert obvious EA joke here.  And then, he attacks the pair after somehow jumping to the conclusion that if we can farm animals, why not Pokémon? Insert long-running joke in the fandom about trainers eating Pokémon, even though we’re pretty sure that doesn’t happen…right? Right! … right?

Damn, that is subtle!

After being defeated, the Customer laments his lost childhood.  And, of course, gets a rant on how he’s just being overly dramatic about it.  He’s not, PETA is just staffed by crazy people who believe that all people who don’t share their views think that way.  And then, the Pokémon team (joined by a Jigglypuff that literally comes right out of nowhere) meets members of PETA, who they mistake for Team Plasma from the beginning.

Okay, at you guys can recognize satire, so one point to you there.

And we continue on by attacking a slaughterhouse, where we seem just as justified when Jesse and James…oh, I’m sorry, “Slaughterhouse Workers” attack.  Another fight, and then we’re joined by “Grimace”, who is apparently a mutated Pokémon in this version that was made by McDonald’s to eat food made of tortured animals.  They claim this happened decades ago, which I call BS on.  My earliest memories of Pokémon shamelessly advertising with a fast food franchises were strictly a Burger King affair…and Grimace has been in the McDonald’s franchise since 1971…so…yeah, I’d call it bizarre, but then there would have to be something founded in logic here, so nevermind that.

Oh, and the final boss battle is Ronald McDonald, apparently having been distorted by the powers of Satan…or some very heavy-handed, preachy propaganda.  And defeating him with the combined power of all your self-righteous might reveals Ronald to be – in a Scooby-Doo-esque manner – to be nothing more than a man who cares for nothing more than the exploitation of Pokémon (wistfully remembering the efforts of Team Rocket in the original games…do you feel the anvil yet?), and the team decides to share their knowledge with the world about the injustice and cruelty suffered by animals and Pokémon alike.

And after playing this game, I really don’t want to go to an all vegan diet – but a stiff drink seems like a not at all terrible idea.

I won’t get into the moral debate about whether or not animals share the same level of sentience that humans do, that’s not what I’m here for.  As for whether or not this is a good game – well, obviously, it isn’t, is it?  It’s boring, preachy, and is pretty much how a Pokémon is but without any of the charm of the thing it’s claiming to be doing a parody of.  This isn’t a satire, I’m even tempted to say it’s not a parody so much as it is taking the vague visual trappings of something, giving it an Eli Roth makeover and screaming “LOOK, DEAR SWEET BABY JESUS, IT’S SO WRONG!!!” over and over again at the top of your lungs.  By contrast, the Pokémon and PETA are all apparently completely justified in assault, destruction of property, and theft.  Because, y’know…it’s for the animals and thus doesn’t hurt people who work in those industries and are just trying to earn a living, clearly.  We’re only attacking the EVIL CORPORATIONS!

 

After playing through this game – which, to its credit, can be done in about twenty minutes without issue (this, by the way, is not a compliment) – I can really only say that at its best, I roll my eyes at how stupidly over the top it is, and at its worst, I’m kind of offended by it.  It’s clear in several cases that someone at PETA has played some of the Pokémon games (or knows of the “Whitney’s Miltank” and “Top Percentage Rattata” memes), because of some of the in jokes in it, but they managed to comically miss the entire creed that Pokémon teaches, which I just handily explained a little bit ago.  And regardless, referencing things that are popular within the community of Pokémon fans isn’t going to get us all jumping over to your side of the fence, not with this steaming pile of Flash animation you’ve thrown out.

And by the way, PETA (in case someone who works with/for them reads this, and I know they won't), I typed this review after eating nachos.  Nachos that had cheese on them! FROM COWS!!! Maybe I'll stop once you look up what fun means (you know I won't).

Here is where you can play this rather tasteless, anvilicious abomination of a game.  Why anyone would want to is beyond me... 

Coming up next week...

Here it is.

Yeah, I know I hinted at Fallout 3, and I will get to that.  But this...

This is just begging for me to break off my well-seasoned critic foot in its ass.

And so, tune in next week for the ultimate showdown between MadCapMunchkin and the Real-Life Planeteers in...

"Madcap's Game Reviews:  Pokemon Red, White, and Blue (An Unofficial PETA Parody)"

See you all Friday! In the mean time, I think I'm going to go enjoy a meat product of one sort of another...

MadCap's Game Reviews - "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Unearthing Mehrunes Razor"

The Pigsticker of Demonic Powah!

Alright, yes, this review is yet another opportunity for me to gush about how much I loved Morrowind.  That’s because it really is a large majority of what Unearthing Mehrunes Razor is.   But y’know, that’s really enough for me for this DLC.  It does much like certain other games do, but not in a way that screams “Hey! Look at us! We can make references to something that was once immensely popular! Please ignore the fact that it’s not actually a game!”  But the difference between that ungodly abomination and this is a simple one.  Unearthing Mehrunes Razor is an exercise in not just spectacle, but substance.  The references actually mean something, at least within the confines of the DLC.

You can start Razor from the moment you leave the Imperial Prison sewers, though it’s highly recommended you pursue it at a higher level, which I have to agree with.  So, once you’ve power leveled, you can finally answer the bizarre psychic message you receive about some activity in the far east of Cyrodiil by a Dunmer mage from Vvardenfell who seeks the power of Mehrunes’ Razor.  Understandably in Oblivion, you don’t get a quest from the Daedra Prince of Destruction, so this adds in his namesake artifact as a nice little bauble.  That doesn’t mean you can use it in the Blood of the Daedra quest, of course (Logic bomb:  After all, why would Mehrunes Dagon let you use the Razor against him?), much like you can’t use Sheogorath’s staff if you were to beat Shivering Isles before taking on the main quest (something I rather stupidly forgot to mention in the Shivering Isles review).

Nevertheless, this seems like quite a bit of trouble to go through for just a dagger, right?

Wrong!

Thus, to Sundercliff Watch you go.  Pack a lunch, because it’s a bit of a long trek as I said before – on the far east edge of Cyrodiil.  But once you’ve arrived, you can head in and the fun begins with several members of the “Drothmeri” army, a group founded and run by the Dunmer mage mentioned before - Frathen Drothan – a rogue Telvanni mage, he hopes to seize the dagger and use it to overthrow the Tamriel Empire.  Now, an obvious question is how a single mage can possibly just use one dagger to do this, but forget logic! Are you a bad enough dude (or dudette) to brave dark corridors, vicious monsters, and occasionally overly-long loading times to get a magic dagger?  Oblivion yeah, you are!

Getting through Sundercliff Watch to the Ayleid ruin of Varsa Baalim (where the Razor’s resting place can be found) can be a bit of a challenge if you just plow your way through the Drothmeri army.  Sneaking here is definitely a good idea and is rather fun.  With a high enough Sneak and a bit of luck, it’s actually very possible to get through the entire dungeon and kill nobody at all, sneaking around literally everyone in the dungeon and leaving no one the wiser that you were even there…or leaving a trail of bodies in your wake and anyone who follows it utterly confused as to who killed a certain Dunmer soldier and left his body precariously perched on a stalactite in a comedic fashion.

Interestingly, Dagon doesn't seem to notice the Razor if you have it in the Main Quest

  

There’s a medley of things to be found in the place, mostly dark elves of various types that give about as much resistance as your common bandits if things don’t turn for the  insanely fluster-cucky in fights.  Within Varsa Baalim itself, you’ll find vampires, which are pretty much your standard fair depending upon level.  Again, you can sneak around them too and they’ll be none the wiser for the experience.  Until, at last, you get to the final room in Varsa Baalim and come face to face with Drothan himself…who can very easily and promptly get himself killed if you wait him out and he doesn’t notice you, which will eventually get him to try and force the door to the Razor open, which will wake up the Guardian who will more than likely kill him.

If not, then kill him yourself and go for the Razor.  If you just feel bloodthirsty and kill him, then head up to the door and try to force it open, upon which occasion you will be forced to take on Mehrunes’ Champion.  Which you can easily side-step if you remove his heart, which will give you four infamy points and give you Porphyric Hemophilia (the vampire disease) and Cannibal's Prion if you eat it.  This is an easy way to become a vampire for some.

Which leads me to a brilliant and utterly flawless segue into talking about vampires in Oblivion, which admittedly I should have done before…why? Vampires are completely useless to play in Oblivion, even more so than they are in Skyrim.  Unless you restrict yourself to only moving around at night, you stay fed enough so that you don’t get the perks of the higher tiers of vampirism and really where is the fun in that?  Unless you’re just going to hang around in the Imperial City, I wouldn’t recommend taking the route at all.  Werewolves, given all the wilderness available in Oblivion, would have been a much more logical choice.

And now to segue flawlessly back into talking about Razor.  Like all weapons in the game, it’s levelled depending on your level, and unlike Knights of the Nine, there isn’t a handy little rack that will let you insta-recharge it and level it up to where your level is.  This, too, is another reason to tackle this DLC at a higher level rather than later on.  The Mehrunes Razor itself is not a bad weapon, with a nice bit of Distengrate Armor and Daedric Banishing enchantments, the latter of which has a change of instantly killing a target on strike which is based in part on the player’s Luck Attribute.  Interesting, which some pop up flavor text will tell you that “through the Razor, Mehrunes Dagon claims this soul” or something to that effect, any target hit with a Soul Trap or similar spell will still fill a Soul Gem as though nothing had happened.

And, of course, all the references to Morrowind.  Instead of just throwing them in our faces like certain other, lesser games might, Razor does it largely through flavor texts in various letters and books that can be ignored if the player so chooses.  However, through them we’re able to learn of Drothan – the work he’s done to find Varsa Baalim and the Razor, and the reason why he could be such a threat.  In essence, we can at least on some level care about what’s going on.  And apart from that, the little nods to things in Morrowind – the House of Earthly Delights and a book that is mentioned as having been purchased from Jobasha's Rare Books, and so on – add a little bit of spice and character to what would otherwise just be mooks that the player tears through to achieve a goal.

That all being said, there is one major problem I have with this DLC – there is absolutely no adventure hook.  You can go about being as the Champion of Cyrodiil and completely ignore Sundercliff Watch and all that is contained within and the game world will be no different for it.  There is a rather interesting letter that was made by Bethesda as part of the add-on that explains the situation with Drothan in the form of a missive from the Imperial Ambassador of Morrowind to an Advisor to King Helseth (who veterans of Tribunal will no doubt remember), but this doesn’t appear in the game.  There is absolutely nothing that gets the player involved in the add-on at all.  Just a sudden pop up in your Journal telling you that it’s there.

See, kids? You too can create paradoxes.

Beyond that, however, it’s a nice little add-on.  Around an hour’s time playing around with it, maybe less, and for three bucks (around that, it was 250 Microsoft Points at the time of release) I have to admit it was more than I was actually expecting to get.  That, coupled with the references to Morrowind, makes this one a fondly remembered one.

And that, dear friends, closes the book on Oblivion and my recollections of it.  Certainly, I could go on into the others, but here is as good a stopping point as any.  Besides, I just might need the fodder for the future, who knows?

Now with Oblivion out of the way, I’m going to take a look at another beloved Bethesda series.  Pack your rail guns and your Tesla canons, and wrap yourself up in something warm, because we’re heading into a nuclear winter wonderland…

…that happens to be very brown and green.

…huh.

"Unearthing Mehrunes Razor" is available for Xbox 360, PC, and Playstation 3.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - The Shivering Isles"

The second expansion to Oblivion, The Shivering Isles adds in an all new realm of Oblivion not touched upon in the vanilla game headed by the Partyman, Lord of the Mad, and Daedric Prince of Madness (and other things too, but he can’t talk about them) himself, Sheogorath.

And let me again just be blunt, THIS ROCKS!

I mean it, virtually everything I didn’t so much enjoy in Oblivion is either corrected or isn’t a major factor in this expansion, which takes us far across the celestial veil and into the realms of Sheogorath.  Some interaction could, of course, be had with him in the vanilla game when you royally mess with a village by poisoning their livestock and making it rain burning dogs, among other steps.  If that doesn’t sound like the most vaguely frightening thing you’ve ever heard, then Shivering Isles might be just for you!

The add-on will bring in a small island off the coast of the town of Bravil, where you’ll find a Bravil city guard whose managed to swim out there along with two people who have already gone through and come back…stranger.  When the player character enters, they are greeted by the right hand man of Sheogorath himself, Haskill.  Unlike his master, Haskill is a rather subdued, some might say even dower gentleman who invites you to enter the Isles, but warns you that you will never be the same once you enter into them.

And indeed, you will not, as a very strange and wondrous world lies before you.  And, like Alice before you, you are brought through the looking glass and into the Shivering Isles.  Your first difficulty comes in the town of Passwall, where live those that have not yet been blessed by Sheogorath to pass the Gatekeeper.  And the eldritch abomination cannot be passed without severe consequences (namely death) so, what is a player character to do? Why, kill it right back, of course!  There are actually a number of ways to achieve this besides just trying to brute force your way past him (not recommended for low-level characters) and it pays to move around in the area around Passwall to find out how to utilize them.

Sheogorath '16: Cheese for Everyone!

But once you’ve defeated the Gatekeeper, you can pass into the Shivering Isles.  You can very easily just go off exploring afterwards and not worry at all about the main questline until you have the urge to do so.  It’s not at all intrusive and Sheogorath will pretty much wait forever while you muck around in his realm (then again, given his portfolio, he might just enjoy you mucking around in his realm).  But when you’re ready to play it, it’s there for you.

There are literally dozens of additional side quests that are added on by this, and quite varied.  Everything from helping to stock a museum of the bizarre, to finding a home with a roof for a man whose afraid he’ll fall into the sky whilst he sleeps, to finding matrixes that will allow you to have magical weapons and armor made for you, to helping the beloved minor Morrowind character Big-Head recover his Fork of Horripilation and more!  And, of course, there’s plenty of ground to cover simply wandering around getting gnawed on by the local wildlife (oh, and there’s a quest for that) and enjoying the exotic scenery.

One thing I’d criticized vanilla Oblivion for doing was sticking to the generic western fantasy setting.  Shivering Isles, on the other hand, is a colorful romp through some of the most bizarre and rather unique scenery.  Very reminiscent of Morrowind on an extreme drug trip.  Be it either the colorful lands of Mania or the dark and twisted roots of Dementia, both halves of the Isles have a unique look and feel to them.  Even the dungeons are rather unique – if only because they clearly have more thought put into them than the dungeons back in Cyrodiil.

As for the jewel in the crown, the storyline involves you aiding Sheogorath in stopping the Greymarch, and event that happens at the end of every Era where another Daedric Prince, Jyggalag, ransacks the Shivering Isles.  Then, Sheogorath rebuilds them, and the whole process is doomed to go on forever…until now, when the Madgod sees an opportunity to break the cycle.  How, you might ask? Well, by making you take his place, of course!

…yeah, I didn’t see that coming, either.

Of course, it’s quite a jump from mortal to god, but Sheogorath gives you the assistance of Haskill as he has you go about the Isles and getting a feel for them, becoming the Duke or Duchess of either Mania or Dementia as well as questing against the forces of Order to prevent the Greymarch…if you can.

Sheogorath wields the Pimp Cane of Madness

I will say, the questlines ending does play very much like that of the others that aren’t the main quest – namely the Fighters’ Guild and the Dark Brotherhood – in that you can receive a hefty tribute every so often by journeying to a location outside of New Sheoth, the capital of the Shivering Isles, and just watching your guards protect your people from the various banditry and wildlife that can attack them.  Of course, you make a bit more if you go yourself, but it’s still a pretty much endless flow of money that you can milk whenever you like.

There are also a few perks to being a Daedric Prince, though they are only useable within the Shivering Isles.  The prime example being able to make it rain…in reality its Weather Manipulation set to random once per day. You also gain the ability to instantly teleport yourself to your Throne Room from anywhere in the Isles.  There’s also the Staff of Sheogorath, which allows you to use the power of Sheogorath’s voice to freeze all characters, be they friend or foe, within a certain area.  This makes them nigh invincible so long as they are frozen, but is very handy for quick escapes or for quickly analyzing combat to know where best to hit in the event of group encounters.

That being said, the few perks that you get are kind of lame for all the work.  But even Jyggalag says at the end that the player hasn’t quite molded themselves into a god.  They seem to be more than just a mortal, but less than a simple god…it seems…uncertain…

…at least ‘til two centuries later when the Dragonborn runs into you and you’ve pretty much fit the bill, but never mind that.

Butterflies that Ron wouldn't want to follow.

Outside of becoming the King of the Madmen, as I said, there are dozens of side quests – both marked and unmarked – that give you literally hours of gameplay.  Again, not to overly praise the environments (after all, graphics don’t sell a game entirely for me), but I was taken in by just wandering the completely alien environment for hours before I was trampled by the Lovecraftian monstrosities that call the Shivering Isles home.

All things considered, for how much you get for this, it’s really great.  And I love it.  But we’re not quite done with my thoughts on the add-ons for Oblivion.  No, indeed, there is one more that I want to voice my thoughts on before I close the book on this retrospective.

Free Mini-Review!: It's still stupid.

…no, it is not Horse Armor!

"The Shivering Isles" is available for PC, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3.