Kratzen
Proudly presents…

Dunkey’s Garbage: Part 1

with ♥ from Froge

Introduction:

I don’t often watch Dunkey’s videos, if only because he’s black, but when he pops off on an opinion, I feel more in – tune with the world than that dude who starred in the Book of Revelations, whose only revelation is that Christians are cultists. Have you watched his video on game critics? Boy, he made me look like a dumbass! It’s all true though: the points about precedent, consistency, bias, and so on. If one of criticism’s goals is to find what deserves to be seen, then we must always keep in mind who is seeing it.

I could talk about everything he brings up, but then my opinions would just be gilding the lily, adding information to what is overall an excellent presentation. The most remarkable part of the video, to me, is how much time he spent creating a collage of his favourite games just for a five – second shot within the video, here is an image of which. Remarkable, mostly, because it turns out Dunkey is a hecking normie. Mario 2? More like Mario 2 Bad You Don’t Have Better Taste (hah!).

But let’s be real, the NES has no games. Alright, let’s give a quick overview of every game Dunkey likes, because as we all know I’m the only person online with any good opinions. From left to right to left again, let’s tear apart these titles.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

I remember using my dad’s PSX (that’s cool kid talk for the “PlayStation”) to play Metal Gear Solid during the Dark Ages where our resolution was the size of a sideways piece of paper, all we had was a D – pad, and loading times were as expedient as the United States Postal Service. I remember thinking to myself, “This is the greatest movie I ever played!”. And then I stopped playing an hour in, because playing console games outside of an emulator is deliberately choosing a worse experience, which at some point somebody paid for. Speaking of emulators, remember Bleem!? The wonders of proprietary software, where you had to pay to emulate, just like those profiteering Cemu cunts. Also I never played this game, because I’m still trying to get through Snake Eater 3D at a whole 5FPS.

Super Mario 3D Land

I bought this game a little bit after my Old 3DS, with the Aqua Blue colour scheme being the best – looking and most brilliant hardware Nintendo has ever designed. Six years later, it came bundled with my New 3DS, before I swapped the SD card and downloaded it from Freeshop. History repeats itself, and also, cha – ching! I thought it would be fun to try it out again after a Games Done Quick speedrun made it look… fun??? Well, it still wasn’t fun. The Mario I grew up with was Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario 64, and New Super Mario Bros. The gimped – up mechanics of this title, where your max speed is akin to a slow bike ride and the platforming is even less challenging, is a disgrace to the Mario name. Also, what was up with those mandatory 3D sections? What if I only had one eye? What then, Nintendo?

Soulcalibur II

Yes they’re using Roman numerals again. I read about this game in a Nintendo Power article of “top 10 greatest cameo appearances” or whatever swill came out of that rag. To be fair, for being corporate propaganda, it was a damn good magazine. The design was crisp, the articles were lengthy and interesting, the content was everything you would have ever wanted from a monthly periodical, and sometimes you even got goodies like Legendary Pokémon for the Pokédex 3D app. To confess, I was a Nintendo fanboy back in the day, ignorant of the cruelty that they have always inflicted on its industry. It even made me want a Wii U… and we all know how that console turned out! With the magic of Homebrew, it would be cool to scoop one up and hack it to all Hell, though that would also make me buy a TV. I’ll just have to wait for Decaf, the only Wii U emulator that isn’t run by cunts, to get off the ground. Also, you can play as Link in this game. HOLY MOTHER OF  – 

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

Alright, I cheated with this game. I loved it as a kid, but I was a kid, so what did I know? I played it again last year, found it pedantic and boring, and quit after I realised it was dead easy and would remain such for the entirety of the game. I thought to myself, “come on, there had to be some magic left in this game”. So I deliberately added in some restrictions: no shops, and no upgrading your health. Guess what? It was still too easy! Up until the last portion of the game, that is, where every enemy can knock you out instantly, you only picked up two extra lives in the entire game, and you have to rely on evasion for every fight. But even barring some awful, awful fetch quests, this game is pretty gooooood…

Bioshock

You know how you keep hearing about 2007 being one of the best years for video games, what with the Wii hitting its stride, the Orange Box coming out, and being in that blissful period right before Steam infected the entire industry with DRM and spyware, mobile games became the get – rich – quick scheme for thousands of creatively dead developers, and before “games journalism” wasn’t a punchline to every joke about the industry ever? For me, Bioshock is the legitimiser of this claim, being a first – person – shooter that took the best of modern gameplay and blended it with the twitch action of olde. It had writing that was actually, and this will shock you, good, with themes that you think about years after you play it, and a plot that’s never confusing and yet riles in you a great deal of emotions. The Big Daddys, too, were one of the greatest enemies gaming has devised, being sinister just by existing, and not because the game forces you to fight them. The final boss was — well, you know. This is why you always make your ending first, kids.

Banjo – Kazooie

Three words: 3D platforming collectathon. This game didn’t invent it, but boy, did it ever define it. I was but a wee lad when the GameCube came out, but I was a blissfully ignorant one, for I got a Nintendo 64 for Christmas instead. Those memories are as faded as they’ll ever get, and every part of my childhood that wasn’t gaming was an awful one, but I do remember the stupid silliness I felt when playing this title. You could go around in those worlds forever, where each character had tons of personality, and with enough glitches and dummied – out content to provide intrigue when surfing the early days of the Web. I’m not nostalgia – blind for this title, and all the gameplay I remember now comes from speedruns, but when it comes to æsthetics, this game has it mastered.

Aladdin

I think I played the Lion King SNES game when I was four? The old joke about a family being so cheap they were still owned a SNES rings true, even as Biggie Smalls was rapping about “Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis; When I was dead broke, man, I couldn’t picture this”, way back when those consoles sold for more than $40, and you could actually get them in boxes. My knowledge of the SNES was limited to what I could leech off my friend’s house… indeed, my earliest console was the PSX, and the first one I actually owned was the Nintendo 64 (and then came the DS, the Wii, the 3DS, and now I just emulate everything that isn’t 3DS). First game I ever played was probably Super Mario World, not that it matters, how bum my memory is. But to think about what actually existed way back in the day, when just twenty years later we have hundred – million – dollar graphics that will blow your tits off, I can’t wait to see what will happen in the next twenty years. Also, check out Dunkey’s Aladdin run — beating the previous world record by fifteen minutes!

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Alright, now this is really the best movie I’ve ever played. Compared to the clusterheck that is other Metal Gear Games, this one has a story that could be written on the back of an envelope (if it’s a bigass envelope that is), maps that get that just – right mix of open – world and focused gameplay, the freedom to do whatever you want without it being overwhelming like in The Phantom Pain (which is why I actually preferred Ground Zeros), and writing that makes you realise Our Lord and Saviour Kojima has some self – awareness after all. The game knows how to segregate its story and gameplay, too. You get some interesting cutscenes, and then you get great gameplay, unlike in other Metal Gear Games where you’re always being interrupted by somebody who wants to lecture you on Esperanto or meme theory. Sadly I am forced to discount this recommendation because the 3DS has the processing power of a toaster. Even having a New 3DS isn’t enough: you have to overclock it to make it run at a decent frame rate (note that the YouTube comment deliberately says it’s not technically overclocking #gamesjournalism). Now that’s just bad programming.

Mass Effect 2

The first Mass Effect was a shining example of a game that doesn’t need gameplay to be great. I know I’m going to have my critic pass revoked for saying such a thing, but let’s be honest, the gameplay was functional at best. The real joy, like in the Fallout games, comes from exploring the worlds, forging your own story, interacting with those carefully – constructed piles of code and assets we call characters, and also getting to drive in a cool car that everyone hates for some reason that eludes me. I was excited to play Mass Effect 2, having downloaded it off a torrent that included a fair amount of blue alien porn, though the game made me read a ten – minute – long comic (brought to you by Dark Horse Comics, a company who I didn’t know before but now hate because of this), threw me into a ten – minute – long cutscene, and then crashed on me never to launch again. Thanks, EA. No, I’m not blaming the torrent; every other torrent works fine, so clearly the problem is with you. Yes, you, multi – billion dollar company! Watch me laugh at you as I live paycheque to paycheque off welfare, while you live in luxuries that a hundred years ago would have gotten you executed for blasphemy.

ABZÛ

I review games, not interactive wallpapers.

Ori and the Blind Forest

The obsession that’s come out of this game is like a modification of the Undertale gene: furry little creatures in a bog – standard platformer that features an emotionally manipulative story and has an odd grudge against colourblind players. The modification comes thusly: one, the graphics are what you would typically call “good”, if your artistic palette begins and ends at pre – approved committee – driven styles that are designed to be as noncontroversially “good” as possible. Two, I actually played Undertale. I watched the Zero Punctuation review of this game, as I have every single game that series has reviewed, and I thought, “wow, this game sounds awful”. I then watched a speedrun of it, and I confirmed it also looks awful to play. As the first panel in that Drake meme comic says… well, he doesn’t say anything, he just makes a disapproving face while doing a discount dab. No, if I want furry games, I’m sticking with Dust: An Elysian Tail. Or failing that, Neopets.

Conclusion

“Well that doesn’t seem so bad”, you say. Perhaps so, but given I’ve only looked at 20% of these games, most of them I haven’t even played, you would think Dunkey’s taste is well – rounded. You would be fooled into seeing the attractive illusion that is the very first portion of this five – part series. Ho – ho! Anyway, that’s all for this week, so remember to like my videos, follow my videos, comment on my videos, like the comments on my videos, like the comments I post on other videos, hit that little bell right there, donate to my Internet Welfare, click on my Crunchyroll affiliate links, download one free audiobook on Audible.com, and buy stocks in my illegal holdings company so I can launder money to foreign countries in order to keep defrauding the Canadian government. See you.