Animals N' Stuff

This morning we got a very strange report about Tokyo Jungle, and just now we got to see a trailer for it.

Now, I'll admit, I had a pretty late night last night and today my brain is basically half a pound of Nickelodeon Gak, so it's a weird color and isn't good for much right now except making fart noises and therefore, my ability to assess the awesomeness of things might be a little off. However, I think this game looks ridiculously cool.

Even though I haven't really seen much gameplay, I love the idea: it is the future, and Tokyo is overrun by wild animals. For some reason, you control a pomeranian wearing a little sweater, and you have to fight cats and rabbits and stuff. But that's what I read about it before I saw the trailer, and the trailer has a T-Rex in it. So basically I have no idea what the game is about.


The only thing this tells me is that you might be challenged by beagles.

Frankly, I don't really care what you do in the game, I just get stoked about animals. I think animals are rad, and it bugs me how rarely you actually get to play as animals in video games. And I mean real animals, not some cartoon anthropomorphic thing like Crash Bandicoot or Sonic.

Remember when you were a little kid, and you played pretend? How often were you like, "I'm pretending I'm a Space Marine! Gargghhh! Die Covenant!" and how often were you like, "I'm a TYRANNOSAURUS! ROARRGHH!"

Let me ask you this: Why aren't there more good games where you play as dinosaurs? Everyone likes dinosaurs. People have liked dinosaurs since they first figured out what they were. Off the top of my head, the only good dinosaur game I can think of is Jurassic Park for the Sega Genesis.


Here's a video, if you feel like watching someone else have the most fun ever.

That game was great because you got to play as Alan Grant AND the velociraptor. The raptor could jump like, thirty feet in the air and eat people. How many games involve shooting and throwing grenades stuff? A billion. How many let you jump out of a tree and maul unsuspecting InGen groundskeepers, and then eat them? I don't know, probably less than a billion.

I played Deadly Creatures for the Wii last summer. Didn't get too far in it, but I had an okay time. You play as a tarantula or a scorpion and you go around attacking snakes and lizards and stuff. And for some reason, they gave it a subplot about two humans (voiced by Billy-Bob Thornton and the late/great Dennis Hopper, of all people) who are out in the desert looking for Civil War gold. Go figure.


This game has a great variety of terrifying hissing noises in it.

I mean, that's sort of like if there was a subplot in A Bug's Life about two humans having a picnic and discussing their failed marriages. I'm running around being a tarantula and after every level there's a cutscene with Billy-Bob Thornton talking about treasure-hunting.

So, my point is, basically that... Well, I'm a human being pretty much every day of my life. And when I play video games, it's cool that I get to be a human being with super powers or machine guns, or a robot that looks like a human or whatever... But why the hell can't I be an anaconda or a falcon?

Better yet, why can't I be an anaconda with machine guns? I guess there's just no demand for video games that awesome. In the meantime, I'll just cross my fingers and hope Tokyo Jungle gets shipped stateside. And hopefully with a translation so I can figure out why you play as a Pomeranian in a little sweater.