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Drake & Josh By: Daniel Wang Playing the worst Gameboy Advance games so you don't have to. Not that you were going to anyway. Let me preface this article with a brief introduction. Click here to skip to the review. Ever since I was a child I have diligently researched games before purchasing them. This was a combination of being very eager to get the most value and fun for my limited budget, and simply wanting to have a game library made of pure awesome. I was a religious subscriber and reader of "PC Gamer," and any anticipation of announced/hyped titles was met with blanket unenthusiasm until I had seen an actual review from them, at which point I would latch onto the article like a lamprey and continuously re-read it until there were no more details left to mentally digest - anything below a score of 80% was automatically ignored, and anything in excess of 95% was a "must have" game. Even then, "must have" did not usually result in an actual purchase, either because of simple disinterest or lack of funds. As PC Gamer's review scores were (and are still) never far off the mark, I did quite well for myself. I still boot up classics like Civilization II, The Curse of Monkey Island, Deus Ex, and the Baldur's Gate series - the enjoyment and replay value of which far exceeds what I paid for them. I still hold true to this philosphy, but because of an aging PC I have stopped purchasing games that have a minimum requirement equivalent to Half Life 2 (which I cannot run). This also applies retroactively to games that require me to turn all settings to low to even come close to a playable framerate. Translation: my PC was a mid-range system for 2003. It is now 2009. Go figure. Which brings me to an interesting psychological experiment: forcing a gamer mildly obsessed with quality to play what may or may not be the most horrid GameBoy Advance games ever. Why GameBoy Advance? Because every game ever made for the platform is available from Emu Paradise. Why bad games? Because I, being relatively immune to the scourge of horrible games (aside from reading the hilarious and legendary 6% Extreme PaintBrawl PC Gamer article) makes me the perfect candidate as the curious victim for playing a "bad" game that I never would have dared touch before, determining and discussing why it is bad, and finally lambasting it. See, while the game itself might be no fun, insulting it is. Tale of the Tape Featured earlier as an example of The #1 Thing Not to Buy a Gamer, Drake & Josh is a Nickelodeon duo that I have never heard of. A quick search on Wikipedia shows it to be another formulaic Brady Bunch-lite pre-teen sitcom that gets a ton of licensing regardless of it being utter crap. That - and the fact that there are a statistically insignificant number of legitimate reviews of the game - frightens me. There are two reasons to pick this particular game for the first review of its kind:
The game's exposition opens with two caricatures of Drake and Josh ripping on their kid sister Megan, who is apparently the Spawn of Beezlebub. Let it be known that I cannot distinguish between the two protagonists, and will make no effort to learn their respective names despite them being in the title. Looks like one of the brothers is late for school because Megan turned off the guy's alarm, and she calls him a boob. "Boob" is a recurring word throughout the game, and probably the only highlight, simply because it is a synonym for a woman's breast. Hot.
Bro #1 is now trying to sneak into school because Bro #2 "can't lie" to cover for him. This clearly establishes him as a complete George Washington-wannabe-douche who won't help a brutha out. Apparently bitch-queen Megan has set up webcams all over school to track his every move. Aside from this being downright stalker-like behavior, Megan must like the idea of federal prison: warrantless video surveillance on public property is a felony offense (unconfirmed, author did no research). Nevermind that though, it's by far not the least in a long line of departures from realism and blatant disregard for the law.
The entirety of the game plays out in a top-down fixed isometric perspective. The stock graphics are poor, and I quickly tired of seeing the same tiles over and over again. In Episode 1, Megan, being the Child of Satan that she is, also possesses savant-level technological prowess, and installed magnetic door locks on every critical doorway that can only be triggered by switches hidden throughout the school. Her highly illegal webcams also are linked in to "mechanodogs" that obey her every command, and further hinder Bro #1's attempts to get into class unnoticed. She even mounts automated paintball turrets that stun you temporarily. Ultimately, this gets repetitive and boring within the first 5 minutes, as the level setups are painfully limited by the short list of obstacles that can impede your character without making the game impossibly difficult. Thus, the "puzzle" always comes down to pressing a button while dodging the line of sight of monolithic hall monitors.
Problems begin when you get your guitar and can start serenading sheep-like females who will do your every bidding, assume you press the correct keys in proper sequence. These mindless red-headed drones make even the dumbest blonde appear qualified for MENSA, as they will get caught on furniture, doorways, and other NPCs who will stop to chat with her. There were multiple instances in which I had to restart an entire room simply because the girl decided to succumb to her poor AI and could either 1. Not be charmed again because she would not reset herself, or 2. Be charmed, but catch herself on some architectural flaw that she could not be removed from.
Episode 2 begins with Megan trying to frame the brothers by letting loose a flock of sheep in the science building. Bro #2 gets the unenviable job of hoisting the sheep over his head and chucking them out the emergency exit doors. By this point the gameplay and plot were wafer-thin and no amount of change to goal mechanics was going to make the game any better. The game really should not be divided up into "Episodes" since each one is identical to the previous one, minus the character you play as. Then again, the actual Nickelodeon sitcom may very well be as formulaic as this game, in which case it is a very accurate representation.
Episode 3 takes us back to controlling Bro #1 who gets to immediately enter the girl's locker room. This could have been the perfect time to change the game entirely and reward the loyal player with half naked teenage girls, but Nickelodeon would rather give you more of the same garbage as in Episode 1. Boob.
Episode 4 - MORE OF THE SAME, NOW QUESTIONING SANITY. ASININE BLOCK PUSHING.
Episode 5 - Mother fucker. More retarded "Sokoban"-wannabe puzzles. Pathetically easy "Pipe Dream" clone as the end-of-level minigame. Christ, this game is putrid. Episode 6 - How did I get here? The last level? No way. Wow, even the final "boss fight" sucks! And it's all still within the game's shitty engine! Unbelievable. It disappoints me that anyone can get away with this kind of garbage. After playing through the entire game I want to take a melon baller and eviscerate the testes of the game designer for perpetuating the licensing machine that contributes nothing of actual value to the market. It bears mentioning that throughout the game there were plenty of "miscellaneous" items (guitar picks for Bro #1, homework pages for Bro #2) that act as the replayability. Fuck that shit. There is no way I am going to replay the entire goddamn thing and explore each and every inch to pick up every little scrap of garbage that tries to pass itself off as "replayability aspects" that offers no actual value of any kind. I get "trophies" if I pick up all of the pieces on a level - but they don't do anything! At least, not that I can tell. And I sure as hell am not going to find out.
It seems moot to give some kind of final score or conclusion for this review, simply because the game has a target audience of children with the IQ of turnips. Any kid impressionable enough to consider this game fun because it has their favorite child celebrities emblazoned upon it wouldn't be reading reviews of the game in the first place. I am not sure how you can score a game that has no impetus to be good. It bears mentioning that this game has no replayability to speak of aside from collecting all of the MacGuffin items which may or may not unlock additional features. It has no in-game save, rather it has the old style "password" system that was obsolete once The Legend of Zelda was released. Its mundane plot seems to have been cobbled together from random episodes as a tangled mess of references and in-jokes that no one but the most dedicated Drake & Josh fan would get. Final Arbitrary Quantification (pretend it's a test grade) - Haricot Vert |
