While looking through the long list of Wii U launch titles, a few jumped out at me as completely stupid-sounding. Judging a book by a cover is one thing, but judging a game based on solely its name is a lot more difficult.
So, in order to properly blindly eviscerate these poor, unsuspecting games with my cruel words, I decided to create my own boxart based on what they’re probably about, and then use that as a basis for formal preemptive criticism.
Sports Connection
As a seasoned veteran of OkCupid, Plenty Of Fish, Gk2Gk, Goth Scene, and The Onion’s online personals section, I can smell the semantic reek of desperation of a topical dating site from a mile away. And Sports Connection is without question a dating site. For sports people. I don’t care if it’s a Wii U game and the actual title is “ESPN Sports Connection” this Sports Connection is just another way for sweaty people to wind up humping and I, for one, will not support it.
… But if I’m wrong, and it turns out it’s actually a game where you can play badminton with your friends, then I guess it’s okay. I don’t know, I’m going on a name here.
SiNG Party
Okay, so I think Nintendo maybe showed off part of SiNG Party during their E3 press conference, but the only reason I remember is because it was the first time I actually heard “Call Me Maybe,” so I don’t remember for sure. However, the name SiNG Party just sounds like some creepy business involving choir boys, and based on my rampant speculation, I have no plans on purchasing this product that I just falsified boxart for.
Okay, fine. I phoned this one in.
Nano Assault Neo
Yeah, yeah. I know. This is a sequel to Nano Assault, which was a 3DS game about fighting germs, and it was fairly well received. I DIDN’T KNOW THAT. What do you expect me to do? Actual research? Yeah, right. I was too busy making this box art for a game that’s probably about a bunch of bugs starting a band in space, I guess. Where do I pre-order THAT game, huh?
Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade
As a professional game journalist, do you know what that hardest part of my job is? Well, usually it’s explaining to my relatives how telling jokes about videogames is a real job, but right now it’s resisting the urge to go home and put a gun in my mouth because Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade is the actual title for a fucking videogame. Numerous people worked on this game for a length of time, designing it, coding it, making sound effects and QA testing it. And someone, presumably in marketing, actually thought Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade sounded like a fun enough name for this product that they’re actually trying to sell.
There’s a typo in the Photoshop, and I wrote Family Party: 50 Great Games Obstacle Parade by accident, but it doesn’t matter, because an extra twenty games and making it a parade instead of an arcade doesn’t change the fact that this game sounds like an Atlus JRPG based on a David Sedaris book.
Funky Barn
I have absolutely not even the faintest idea what this game is about. However, based on the name, I’m really tempted to keep it a secret from myself until it’s released, and then lock myself in a storage unit with it, a Wii U, a camera, and a handle of cheap plastic-bottle tequila.
It’s 2012, we’ve got a black President, smartphones, and a robot sending us webcam photos from Mars. How did a videogame called Funky Barn get greenlit, and what is it about? Why is this barn funky? This is what I intend to find out in the depths of my storage locker tequila nightmare hate-tunnel vision quest.
Funky Barn, you guys. FUNKY. BARN.
