Ballz 3D

Why do I do these things to myself? Rex Ronan provides a more complete experience than this game.

Imagine you're a child with parents who know you like video games and encourage this hobby. Like many young children and children at heart you might ask for video games for Christmas. Also like most children you would ask for a specific game. Maybe your parents couldn't find the game you wanted, or it was somehow sold out in this busy Christmas season. Like any well-meaning parent, yours decide to grab a game that's either similar to or at least LOOKS similar to the one you asked for. Maybe you asked for Street Fighter II, or Killer Instinct, or hell even Secret of Evermore.


You tell em, Jester.









A nice, round collection of stereotypes/"classic options" for your fighter. Caveman, clown, fast black guy, a gorilla, and a woman. The game plays about how you would expect with only 2 attack buttons and a jump. Punch, kick, jump. Here you can see me reaching out to touch the gorilla's butt.


Unfortunately the gorilla wasn't pleased with this event and proceeded to violently rip my balls apart.


The creators of this wonderful game are responsible for a game I actually enjoyed when I was younger. PF Magic created the Dogz and Catz "Interactive Simulators" for PCs back in the mid 90's or so. It's a pretty good precursor to Nintendogs from what I recall. You've got a puppy of your choice that you can pet and brush with the mouse, or bathe, or feed, whatever else.


How could you bring such a travesty on the world, PF Magic?

Rex Ronan: Experimental Surgeon

By something resembling popular demand, the next game choice is designed to teach kids about being healthy. Being healthy by not smoking of course; sitting around all day playing video games is perfectly OK. Doctor's orders!






This is a lovely little intro isn't it? Jake here is a successful...something. I'm not sure they ever say what his role in the company is but he's had it since he was 15. Coincidentally, he started smoking when he was 15. Now I'm not entirely sure what the time period of this game is but I don't believe that 15 year olds are allowed to work at cigarette companies. I would imagine that has some sort of conflict of interest; 15 year olds aren't allowed to smoke. Then again this is apparently the future; stupidly named doctors who are ALSO scientists can make themselves small enough to fit inside a human body without any apparent discomfort. They've also developed a plasma gun, or maybe it's a flamethrower, that can kill "bad things" within the body but not hurt the good tissue at all. Why don't they just develop this technology in a different way? Instead of spending all that time shrinking ONE guy down and having him run willy nilly throughout the body washing away tar and cancerous cells, why not just bathe the person in this plasma? A cup of plasma a day keeps death by cigarette away!

However you came here to see me suffer through this game and look at the pretty pictures so here they come.




This is what you'll be staring at for the rest of the levels. Some will be less toothy and others...well, they'll ALL be less toothy. However I find this stage is probably the most visually appealing despite the implausible length of this guy's teeth. Good thing he only has tar on his teeth instead of cancer. Poor Rex would spend 3 weeks cleaning out the cancer instead of 2.5 weeks cleaning out tar.



Afterwards we go down deep, deep, deep into the..trachea. The nastiest snot-ridden trachea I've ever been witness to. It's a basic 3Dish descent with platelets, or aliens, or maybe those robots impeding the way in addition to throat closing snot walls. Can smoke go through mucus this easily? What about food for that matter? Does Jake eat every cigarette that he gets paid? Or does he sell them for booze?


Did I mention the robots? They're very fervent in their mission. And by fervent I mean this:

What the hell guys? They walk over my frail body and the second I get up I'm hit again. If I get lucky I'm knocked over and I can get up in time to shoot them twice before getting my mudhole stomped again. Then walked dry. And stomped some more.

It's a good thing I went to the effort to make Game Genie codes for this nonsense. Complain all you want, this game is annoyingly stupid.


By golly I think the trachea and heart are working together. They've both adopted the same attack pattern but have changed colors in order to fool me. And they are doing a terrible job at it; I can still fly through holes like a drunk flying elephant in the circus.


Ye gods Jake is dying of a heart attack right this god damn minute. Get your plasma gun in there and clear out all that fat! And the killer robots that respawn instantly and fly through organs like nobody's business! Screw medicine, we've got PLASMA GUNS! Also you better hope you have the Flamethrower version instead of the cannon version. Because this fat crowds up quick and the cannon does a terrible job of cleaning. Cannons are much better for killing.


The brain is boring, long and repetitive. Much like real brains of boring cancer patients, it just goes on and on and on. And down. Then over again. Some more down, a few up. Then you get to the boss, the final nicotine addiction. Surprise, it's exactly like the heart fat but it doesn't spread nonstop and won't immediately kill him! But the flying troop carriers respawn a lot. Then you kill the addiction and this travesty is finally over.


The size of this transport is incredibly inconsistent.



"Fails" is indeed accurate. MAN DECRIES CIGARETTES. CIGARETTE COMPANY FAILS AFTER MILLIONS LISTEN. What about all the jobs from the loss of the cigarette companies? Where will these people go? What will they eat? Jake has shown that eating cigarettes is only slightly more healthy than smoking them.








Never again. Not even if you pay me. Especially if you pay me in cigarettes from Blackburn.

EDIT: I actually started this June 1st 2008, but it didn't get posted until April 9th 2009. Hurrah?

Bassin's Black Bass

The game starts by telling you to that you will be matching wits with the tenacious bass. I'm no biologist but this sounds like some sort insult to the human mind's ability to outsmart a fish. Then again, this looks to be about the 80th fishing game that Hot-B has made so perhaps I should listen to their judgement on the matter.


There are a generous THREE save slots available in this game. In each one you get to make your angler; male or female, name, clothing, even deciding if you are right or left handed. I of course chose the most outlandish costume with the hopes that it will attract more and bigger fish. That's how this sport works right? Maybe it should be noted that I haven't gone fishing in at least eight years.


After character creation you are taken to the first "stage": the Local Amateur Tournament at Green Valley. Sounds peaceful. However either there's a Laurel and Hardy convention in town or someone around here likes dressing up as old timey movie actors. Seriously, look at that guy. Not only that but Mr. Creepy John the expert fisherman chooses me out of the fifty other fisherman to offer his services as a "guide". He claims that I'll be sure to win if I take him along. Sounds a little fishy (har!) to me but why not? And with that, the tournament starts.


The dock area is pretty lively looking; the graphics here are actually pretty decent for a fishing game. Let's head out somewhere where the fish are located; according to John I should be looking for reeds or lily pads. However it turns out that there aren't any fish here; at least none that will take the bait. Even though it is PORK FLAVORED. Whatever, I hate picky fish.


I move on to an area covered in weeds and bring out the trusty spinner bait. Lo and behold, I actually caught something! It actually took several tries to figure out how to "hook" the fish (hint: hold down and A or Y). I reel my prize catch in and...whats this?


A frickin' crappie!? Nobody wants the worst named fish; this area sucks. Maybe the shoreline with it's trees will be better, so that's where I head. When I get there I check out the standings where I discovered I'm in 26th place. Out of fifty. With no bass to my name. Either everybody after me is tied for 26th or something is afoot. Anyway, back to the fishing; Swisher bait for the trees, I'm told. I give it a try and what do you know, I catch a bass!


Then right after that, an even bigger bass! Sadly, third time is not the charm as this monsterous beast tears my lure from the pole. I vow revenge and grab the natural color Swisher and fling it back out. He grabs it again and gets loose, opting not to eat my precious lure this time. One last try; I lure him close, he bites and I start reeling. Whoo, I got him! Wait, what the..


Who the hell is stocking this lake?! I blame that fatass who seems to be running the whole thing. I'm not terribly sure how much more of this game I can endure, so I'll go ahead and skip to the end. How's that, you ask? By repeatedly ramming my boat into the shore until it breaks. Then we go to the weigh-in! A pure stroke of genius I say.

I figure "I didn't catch anything that big and I wrecked my boat. I bet I'm still 26th." Imagine my surprise when I get first place by just over a pound!


Overall this really isn't that bad of a game. It can get frustrating when the fish completely ignore your bait and the furious attempts to make said look like appetizing; I don't recall ever having that much trouble enticing a fish to eat when I was younger.