Today should have been a great day. Not only was I off from work, but two important items came in today for me through the mail. The first item was Sonata Arctica's live DVD For the Sake of Revenge, acquired through Ebay for a measly $20. As a big Sonata fan, this DVD is really my only hope of seeing these guys live for a long while, as they rarely tour the US. Money well spent!

But the second item was one that, at first, added even more to my day. Straight from GameFly, sitting there next to my DVD, was my copy of Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Zombie Ninja Pro-Am for the PS2. Like a good chunk of 'young people', I've been a fan of ATHF since the very beginning, having acquired my first taste of them back in high school. Ever since I saw Dr. Weird spray the Rabbot in the eyes with a giant bottle of perfume, I've been hooked.

So with such rabid devotion I put the game on my 'GameQ' through GF, eagerly awaiting it's arrival in my home. I even went so far as to purchase the game through them, not only saving a few bucks because it would be 'used', but also because it open my GameQ up for Assassin's Creed and Kane & Lynch to make their way to my home.

However you can already guess that something must be amiss, else why would I say today 'should' have been a great day? Well first watch this promotional video in order to give you a bit of background on the game itself. After that I'll tell you why I feel kinda let-down by this game.



Watched it? Good. As you can see from the trailer, the game is a strange beat-em-up/golf hybrid game, featuring 11 levels (12 if you count the tutorial) of golfing while also mixing in some slight exploration, item collection, and fighting. In other words: this game is certainly original.

But how does this all go together? Simple: you hit the ball, then you have to go through the level in order to get to where your ball landed. As you roam around, however, you are beset on all sides by classic Aqua Teen creatures like Brownie Monsters, Trees (from 'Revenge of the Trees', one of my favorite episodes), and even the 'Wisdom Cube'. But luckily you are not defenseless, your club making a fine weapon along with swords and anti-crab spray found throughout the levels.

Of course there's also that whole item collection aspect to the game I mentioned earlier. Like many games, this one too requires you to seek out hidden objects in order to unlock special bonus content. One of these are film reels, which unlock clips from the shows for your viewing enjoyment. The other are Broodwich pieces, of which there are twelve altogether (one in each level). Collecting all of them supposedly unlocks a special bonus video, however I'm only on the sixth level at the moment so I haven't acquired all the pieces yet.

I'm sure you must be wondering to yourself 'so what's the problem Mike? It sounds like a decent attempt at something original while also retaining the Aqua Teen humor'. Well allow me to give you the quick and dirty on this game.

The first thing that bugged me were the graphics. Granted I know for $30 I shouldn't be too picky, but GodHand was $30 and looks way better than this. I blame part of this on the Aqua Teens themselves, as they really don't transition well to 3D. Carl and the Plutonians especially look really bad (Ogglethorpe looks like a bald, spiky Hershey Kiss). This takes away slightly from the cutscenes as well, the humor making them the only reason I could stand watching them over and over again.

The other item on my list is the gameplay. The golf itself is alright, serving as more of a plot device than a true feature of the game. It's mostly just hitting X to determine power, then hitting X again to set your accuracy. Nothing to really complain about. Yet I can't get over how repetitive the fighting is, featuring nothing more than running around fighting rapidly respawning enemies over and over and over again while just mashing the X button to attack. Like I said about the graphics, I know I shouldn't complain since this game is on the cheap end, but I really wish they had done a bit more to make the combat a bit more enjoyable, as the game is mostly about killing creatures while occasionally golfing.

Yet despite all of these issues, I guess I can't be too cruel to this game. The cast of the show lends their voices to the game with excellent results. Also the levels are quite nice, feeling like they belong to a golf course that could only exist in the twisted universe of the ATHF.

I also can't forget the bonus features, which feature artwork, the cinemas from the game, and a neat trailer for Blacksite: Area 51. Granted I don't get why they would include a trailer for a game that isn't even coming out for the PS2. Maybe they assumed a few PS3 owners would give this game a run through their system instead of something like Uncharted or Ratchet and Clank Future?

The best bonus, however, is the inclusion of four full episodes from the series, one of which is an exclusive to the game called 'Robots Everywhere', which features a family of annoying robots moving in next to Carl. As you can imagine they do nothing but torment our favorite bald sexist until he finally fights back in the most awesome way imaginable. The other episodes are 'Revenge of the Moonites' ("I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!"), 'Video Ouiji' ('We are Sofa King We Todd Ed"), and 'Broodwich' ("That sumbitch had an axe!"). Definitely three classics =).

Now that we've got that out of the way, I guess I should add in some sorta score in order to help people decide on whether or not to check this game out. While I do feel disappointed to an extent with the ugly graphics and primitive gameplay, there are redeeming qualities about it that certainly keep it from earning my total ire. So it's no 9 or 10; hell it's not even in the range of a 7-8 for me. However it's certainly not a 1-4 either.

I guess to be fair I should give two scores, one for ATHF fans and the other for anyone else looking at this game. Yeah that'll work! Here goes then:

For ATHF fans like myself: 6/10
For non-ATHF fans (how i pity you =P): 5/10

Yes I know it's one whole point. Let's be honest though; the only people who will truly get the most out of this game are those familiar with the material in question. As for renting it or buying it, I'd say at least rent it. If I had thought about it, I probably wouldn't have bought this game despite my fandom. Yet I can see this game being a tough one to rent, so perhaps just picking it up for $30 isn't so bad after all. I mean what else do PS2 owners have to look forward to?

Well that's all folks. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did typing it up. Granted I know it's not as good as something from Jim or Dale, but at least it's something. Especially because I'm not sure if one of the editors were planning a review of this game or not.

I also want to mention that part two of my CCG opinion piece will be coming shortly. I'm also making a promise to no longer do another '20 Questions' style post again, as not only did I feel like a total Myspace tool while doing it, but I never even found out if anyone shared any interests of mine on there =(. To make it up to you folks, let me end this post with a little bit of Mizzeatwizzad for your enjoyment.