Thursday, February 5, 2009

Terrible Turdsday!

That's right, friends, it's time for a new weekly feature. Terrible Turdsday! I will share with you a game that is quite literally a turd crammed inside a cartridge. You'll NEVER guess what this week's...

BILL LAIMBEER'S COMBAT BASKETBALL!!! That's what it is. The biggest turd in the history of gaming. It is the Sultan of Suck. The King of Krap. The Worst. Game. Ever.

I have nothing against Bill Laimbeer. It's likely that he had nothing to do with this game at all, other than he got a big bag of money for having his name on the box. I think he'd probably be spinning in his high-back chair if he knew what kind of game was made.* Maybe that's what drove him to coach in the WNBA...

In any case, this game is terrible (or as Charles Barkley would say, trrible). In fact, if this game was called benjamines' combat basketball, I'd probably kill myself. As you can see, the shot at the right is blurry. I did that on purpose to save you from the nightmares that a high-resolution screenshot would inevitably induce.

Let's start with the pacing of the game. Imagine for a moment that you have a remote control that can slow down the planet and everything on it. Now imagine some thugs come and tie you to a chair, which they then tie to a big rock which they then throw into the ocean which then sinks. While you're sinking, they set the remote control to "Slowest Possible Speed Without Being Stopped" and then they break it. Now let 5 extremely slow minutes go by. NOW you know how fast this game is.

Let's talk about perspective. SNES games obviously don't have the hardware to do true 3D, but games like Looney Tunes B-Ball and NBA Jam (probably the two best B-Ball games ever) use a sideline perpective, like on the TV, so you can see most of the court and any time. Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball is a top-down game. So, you can see the top of people's heads. And the giant shoulder pads of the ridiculous robot suits they're wearing. Oh, and you can see the ball get bigger and then smaller when somebody shoots. Riveting.

As far as sound goes, I fortunately have been able to block out all the horrible 'music' and 'sounds' from my memory, so I can sleep at night. If anyone ever ties you to a chair and points a gun to your head and makes you play this game, you'd better go on and burst your eardrums. Trust me. It's for your own good.

All in all, it's a terrible game. Never play it. If you ever find a copy, do the world a favor and run over it with your car a few times. I swear to you, I had (slightly) more fun playing Barbie's Adventure for NES than I did 'playing' this 'game.' The game.com internet cartridge, which does not work and I have never used, is more fun than this. Honest!

Pros:
  • Seriously?
Cons:
  • Slow
  • Stupid
  • Lame
  • Awful
  • Stinky
  • Repugnant
  • Suicide Inducer
  • Terrorism
  • A yellow handbag
This game has earned a Blatantly Biased (and totally accurate):






This is the lowest score ever recieved on Blatant Bias. And it is well-deserved.

See ya next Turdsday!

* He's not dead. After this game, he might have wished he was, though.

3 comments:

Devin said...

HAHA! That's amazing! I've never had the dishonor of playing this game, but I'm thinking I prolly won't. Someone has to like it, though. I mean, someone in the world likes Wizardry...

Rachel said...

Hehe, crazy, I never thought I'd see a 0 rating. Sounds like a pretty horrible game. I'll be sure to keep it out of the house. Your new weekly thing is cool :) I love you Benny Boo!

Funluvinchick said...

I think you need to write and publish a paper about the development of video games. Like how we went from a game like pong to how video games are smart like on Halo where there can be different camera angels. You'd get lots of people to read it! Anyway, yeah...that was just a dream I had last night and thought if anyone would know about that, it would be you. :) So here's more work for you to do! LOL