This week on Hit or Miss: The universe is revealed to be a fan of retro gaming; BioWare is responsible for either the best or worst video game April Fools joke ever; I indulgently lavish praise on WarioWare: D.I.Y.; and I indulgently cast judgment on Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions without concern of pre-maturity or due diligence.
Hey everyone! If you see any hidden “Easter eggs” within the text of this article, then that means you’re probably a paranoid schizophrenic, because there are no hidden Easter eggs within the text of this article.
Early this week, a thermal image of Mimas, a moon of Saturn, showed what appeared to be Pac-Man across the entire surface of the heavenly body. Which is weird, because I didn’t know a version of Pac-Man was ever released for the Sega Saturn. Ba-BOOM!
Ahem. So there are two possible explanations for this: 1) It’s just an extremely coincidental distribution of heat across the moon, noticeable as Pac-Man only because of the human brain’s tendency to see patterns and symbols where none actually exists. Or 2) Pac-Man is a demigod and must be worshipped accordingly.
Or 3) Dr. Manhattan is real, teleported to Mimas after a crowd of people wouldn’t stop bothering him at a Starbucks, and was sick of leaving behind smiley faces on distant planets. So there are three possibly explanations, then. I just thought of that last one now.
Anyway, the point is Pac-Man should now be worshipped as a demigod, just to be safe. We shall offer him succulent honeys as tribute, and mark our bodies with his visage as a sign of honor toward —
Oh! 4) Maybe Mimas is just, like, a totally hipster moon, and is trying to be ironic by decorating itself in ’80s icons. Note that this theory makes even more amazing sense when you consider Mimas also kind of looks like the Death Star.
But I digress again. The point is, all hail Pac-Man, Eater of Worlds. Now join me in chant! Wakka wakka om! Wakka wakka om!
I really want to believe that charging $3 for a pair of silly April Fools-themed Dragon Age add-ons was BioWare’s April Fools joke. Like…they make it seem as if the add-ons are the joke, while meanwhile the real joke is this big, meta, Andy Kaufman-esque mind-fuck to piss everyone off deliberately, all in an effort to make some elaborate commentary on the absurdity of modern-age DLC nickel-and-diming.
I want to believe this, but I’m pretty sure they really were just that completely tactless. Here’s the only way I can imagine such a terrible idea could come to pass:
Executive One: “So April Fools Day is coming up. What if we make some…you know…some silly April Fools-themed DLC items for Dragon Age?”
Executive Two: “Hey, that’s a great idea! We could make, what, another $10,000-to-$20,000 at least?”
Executive One: “Hahaha, right, because we’d be ‘charging‘ for it! That’s perfect!”
Executive Two: “It is perfect, because then we’d have more money!”
Executive One: “Hah, yeah. We’d ‘have‘ more ‘money.’ That’s awesome.”
Executive Two: “Yeah, it is. Because money buys us things.”
Executive One: “Yeah…”
Executive Two: “Yeah…”
Executive One: “…Wait, are you being serious?”
Executive Two: “…Are you not?”
Executive One: “Well I wasn’t at first, but now I kind of do want that money. Fuck it, let’s really charge for them.”
No, this isn’t really a news story. But you know what? I don’t care. I don’t care that it’s not, OK? What it is, is what will more than likely end up being my favorite game of the year. Hell, this may be my favorite thing Nintendo has made since the Game Boy Camera.
Why do I love this game so much? Allow me to answer that question by indulgently forcing you to watch this poor quality video of my MicroGames. Feel free to nod politely afterward while backing away slowly.
Coming soon: MicroGames based on a bomb-diffusing scene in The Hurt Locker, wasting your life on Twitter, and spoiling the ending of Remember Me for Robert Pattinson fangirls. Game. Of. The. Year.
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions Looks Not-Quite Amazing
In Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, four different Spider-Men from parallel universes must work together to re-forge the shattered “Tablet of Order and Chaos” before all universes are destroyed. In other words, I expect it to be something kind of a lot like this.
Which brings us to Kris Pigna Dictum Number 27: Before you experiment wildly with the video game series of a beloved fictional character, you have to get at least one normal game about that character right first.
Seriously, Activision, you don’t get to experiment with a character until you’ve released so many acceptably good games that people actually start getting tired of how predictably good they are — like, say, the craziness of Super Mario Galaxy after Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, for example. What you cannot do is make Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, then Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, and then go, “WE’RE COMPLETELY OUT OF OUR MINDS! HERE’S SPIDER-MAN IN THE 1930s, JERKASSES!”
Yes, I’m aware that 1930s Spider-Man is based on Spider-Man Noir, an actual Marvel comic series and not Activision’s invention. Fine — but that doesn’t mean I necessarily want to see a video game about it at the expense of a game entirely about the Spider-Man everyone knows and loves.
Think of it this way. Imagine if every year LucasArts tried to make an Indiana Jones game, and they all sucked. Then LucasArts promised that no, seriously, this time we’ll make the Indiana Jones game everyone always wanted…and it turns out to be based on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. I think I speak for everyone (and for everyone I mean probably only myself) when I say we want Harrison Ford and not Sean Patrick Flannery, Activision.
But, you know…with Spider-Man games. I’m speaking figuratively, that is.