Humpday Gaming: Powerpuff Girls
It’s a fact – girls have the worst toys ever, and they’ve only gotten lamer since I was a kid. I’ll admit it… when I was young I sort of thought My Little Ponies were cool. I may have secretly wished that I had all the Strawberry Shortcake dolls. I might even admit to having a Care Bear doll if you buy me a few drinks. But, nowadays there are NO girl toys that look interesting in the slightest. Yeah, there are lots of what I’d consider to be asexual toys, like Pokemon for example, but for the most part “girl” toys are the most boring pieces of plastic to ever be placed on a Toys R Us shelf… and when I say that I am including those hollow plastic pig banks. At least those held money, and if you tied a rope through its nose, you’ve got a pretty dangerous mace-like weapon.
Unfortunately for them, the video game world has taken pretty much the same stance on “girl” games. There are Barbie games where you get to pick out her clothes and style her virtual hair. There was a complete train wreck of a game released about the Spice Girls a few years back that I tried, and to the best of my knowledge all I could figure out how to do was change the background of the game while they dance – and I completed a level with a good score! But finally I thought I had found a game for younger girls that would have to be awesome. It was based on one of the best girl cartoon shows ever, the Powerpuff Girls, and the show screams “make a fairly uninspired, yet strangely fun game out of me!” But the developers did not listen to the show, and girls all over the world are left playing Mario Kart.
Ok, this looked pretty standard at this point...
First lets go over the few things I liked about this game. First off, the cinematics of the Powerpuff Girls look really, really good. They even reproduced the introduction sequence to the show, and it looks great. At this point I was thrilled, because to my surprise they had the voice actors get involved in the game (I’m not 100% sure of that, but the story is all new to the game, and the voices are the same as in the show, so I’ll assume that they hired those actors).
The girls in their 3-dimensional glory! ...in the cinematic only...
Original story? Yep, that’s what I said. And what is this epic quest you are set upon? Well, much like the cartoon this story begins with those four words every little girl wants to hear, “Yes, I used lubricant.” No wait that’s not it… Oh yeah, it starts with :
The City of Townsville
And what horrible situation have the girls been sent up against this time? Well, the story starts with the girls making a pie out of Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice, but Bubbles has an extra ingrediant to add… Chemical X! To those of you who don’t spend your friday nights watching cartoon shows meant for people half our age or younger, Chemical X is the special ingredient that game the Powerpuff Girls their special powers. From what I figure, Chemical X must also be the ingredient that Taco Bell puts in their food, because not only is their food amazingly addicting, the resulting shit-fest that is guaranteed to follow could be misconstrued as some sort of super-power. Anyway, the girls make a pie out of it, but it is stolen! And by who? (Or is it “whom”? Bah, who cares. Grammar is gay.)
Mooooooooojo Jojo!
That’s right, the potion was stolen by none other than Mojo Jojo. That is to say Mojo Jojo has stolen the pie. The pie they have made is missing, and Mojo Jojo is the one who has taken it. The pie was taken by an evil genius, and nobody is more evil or more genius than Mojo Jojo, so we can conclude that Mojo Jojo is the one who has taken that pie. (Another note to people who don’t watch the show… that is how Mojo Jojo talks. That last paragraph was a parody of the show, not me losing my mind). Mojo took the pie because he knew it was filled with Chemical X. But what does he do with a pie filled with Chemical X? Why he has a party and the other villains of Townsville eat it. Really.
A good evil scheme should always involve pie.
After eating the super powered pie, the baddies then take over Townsville, because they are now as powerful as the Powerpuff Girls! The girls must go through the locations of Townsville and take the city back from Mojo Jojo and the others. Sounds like it could be fun, right? Well, unfortunately it’s not.
First off, I was extremely disappointed that this game was not a 2D game. Since it’s based on a cartoon, there is no reason not to have made it look exactly like the cartoon – flat and pretty. Unfortunately, they made the game out of polygons. They also made the game in apparently twenty minutes. This results in a game that looks jagged and ugly, and plays like crap. Look at the horror they have created!
Yeah, I play as Bubbles... stop laughing at me!
There is the game itself, this time in the Mayor’s Office. I’m fighting Big Billy (of the Gangreen Gang). So how do you fight in this game? Well, you do one of two things. You can run up and punch them or you can throw objects at them. Well, punching them is a bad idea, because the computer hits faster than you can recover. This means if you get hit once, prepare to get hit repeatedly, as if you were dating Ike Turner. So my experience was to throw items at the opponent. There are problems with that as well. If you get hit by an object while you are throwing an object or even if you have just thrown an object and it is flying at the bad guys head once their object hits you, your object vanishes. This means whoever bangs of the throw button faster automatically wins. Whee. But wait! There is more!
See at the top of the screen (by the life bar) there are three vials? That is how you power up your special weapon. You have to collect three vials of Chemical X, and then you can shoot your mighty eyebeams at the enemy. This is actually the only way to do enough damage to win, since every time I tried to throw something, I got hit with something else before I ever got a chance to throw it. So, as I said, you collect three vials, and shoot laser doom at your enemies.
Looking at this picture makes the game look slightly exciting. Don't be fooled.
After playing this game for a few hours, I got about 67% of the way through (according to my save file). I also learned a few things about this game that might help ANY of you that are foolish enough to play it. First, all you have to do is jump around like a retard and try to collect vials. As soon as you get three, fire away. Repeat this three times and you’ll beat every opponent, at least through Ace (another member of the Gangreen Gang). The second thing I learned is that the disc itself makes a fine coaster, and the booklet makes great origami paper. I really don’t see why this game was made. Maybe it gets better?
Another shitty level! Another shitty fight! ... Another wasted night for me.
NO. The game continues, level after level of mind-numbing, button-mashing “action.” I put action in quotes because this game has about as much action as a book about my life would.
Here is a good idea for the Powerpuff Girl people. Make a side scrolling shooter (like R-Type, or Gradius) with the Powerpuff Girls as the main characters. This would be the best poosible game for these characters to be in. I mean, lets analyze their powers.
- They can fly – This would make the idea of a side scrolling shooter much easier to believe.
- They shoot beams from thier eyes – Again, a much more believable shooter.
- They all have slightly different attacks – In the show, Blossom has freeze breath, and the others… well they do something too. (Hey, I just watch the show, I didn’t dedicate my life to cataloging all the episodes…. I did that for Mr. Belvedere). This would make each character have special moves, and then depending on who you play as, the game is slightly different.
Apparently the Game Boy game does play like this, but if it was on Playstation it could even be a three player shooter! But I guess I should stop dreaming and face reality…
This game sucks.
This level is in a junkyard! That's fitting...
At this point, I had fought Big Billy, Sedusa, Princess, Fuzzy Lumpkins, and had gotten to Ace. Ace is actually incredibly hard because there are enough items he can throw at me. I never had the chance to move or anything he just kept pelting me with bricks and trash. It reminded me of my time with the Boy Scouts, so I had to quit. But what will happen to Townsville? Will the Powerpuff Girls save the city, or will Mojo and his gang control Townsville forever?
Who cares… I’d rather laminate my testicles then play this failed abortion again.
