The Worst Licensed GBA Game

Last time I talked about Princess Natasha for the Game Boy Advance, a game that while in itself it isn't a horrible game (just a monotonous one), it's unfortunately affiliated with a series that wasn't very well known but then again, people were really desperate to see this take off, and get this, the game wasn't the only piece of media to come from the show, DC Comics actually threw their hat into the ring and made a four issue comic series. So, Destination Software can't hold the full blunt of marketing for a series that was never destined to take off.

I only mention this now because I wanted to remind you that a desperate license didn't make for a bad game. It's not really a bad game, it's not the worst GBA game, it's not the worst licensed GBA game. I found one that sucks harder than the rest of them.

Shrek Swampkart Speedway

About the source material, game wise.

I'm sure a lot of you know about Shrek, it's the film a lot of us love to shit on via memes (then again, Smash Mouth has it worse), but I'd to forget about all that and remember it as a genuinely fun movie to watch. From a gaming perspective, the first Shrek movie had potential to be a decent video game. It had plenty of gamey elements to it (traversing the castle, fighting that dragon, maybe some exploration, who knows?) but this was all killed by the very publisher that got the game rights.

Activision?

No, at least not until the second movie came out. In fact, Activision practically saved the integrity of the Shrek games.

For games based on the first Shrek movie, we were stuck with TDK Mediactive. I referenced them very briefly when comparing it to Destination Software, but now here's a little history lesson.

About the publisher

TDK Mediactive was a subsidiary of the TDK Corporation, formed after the acquisition of former PC publisher Sound Source Interactive. As established before, TDK primarily focused on publishing budget titles, license mainly. How do they stack up compared to other developers? Crave Entertainment had the luxury of bringing over anime games to the states, as well as Battle Realms. BAM! Entertainment did the same, as well as some early Cartoon Network games. Destination Software at least had some ambitious GBA ports in their belt and you could conceivably enjoy most of their licenses if you have the tolerance for it.

Where does TDK stand? Well, they published two objectively good games, Lady Sia for the GBA and Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade. They also published Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis, currently documented as one of the worst games of all time.

I will say that even TDK (and the other publishers I mentioned) are better than NewKidCo, but NewKidCo is a story for another day (and believe me, I think they're actually worse than I made out Destination Software to be). Let's get into how TDK laid the groundwork for the worst licensed GBA game of all time.

About the game

Already talked enough about the publisher, let's get into a much sadder story. The game was developed by Prolific Publishing. Prolific Publishing were best known for producing the well-received Return Fire (1 and 2), but overtime, slowly devolved into producing licensed games. Towards the end of the 90s, it became clear that Prolific were struggling for work, so sought whatever development jobs they could get. The company itself still exists, but now they're more focused on marine biology. It's like a living corpse who can't do anything but watch itself rot.

This isn't the only Shrek game Prolific produced, they also made Shrek Fairytale Freakdown, pretty much the worst Game Boy Color game of all time. One common trend between both is how limited they are.

Visuals: Needless to say, they're horrifying. Moving icons in the menu look like they were tacked on, the Shrek model on the title screen reminds me a bit of Shrek: Hassle in the Castle (all you need to know about that is that the characters heads are huge in the game) and they use Comic Sans. Yeah. In game, the graphics aren't any better. The frame rate is poor and blurry, making it difficult to see obstacles most of the time. For a GBA game, it's pathetic.

Music: I'd rather have a soundtrack that's forgettable than one that's garbage on a whole new level. The title screen music doesn't even count as music, and the in-game soundtrack is repetitive and broken.

Faithfulness to the source material: No comment, since this is just some non-continuity affair.

Gameplay: Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way. It's a Mario Kart clone. I'd normally object to this because it feels as if people'd shit their pants at the sight of a party game or kart racing game because they nut to Mario every day of the week. With this game, I'll go with the Mario Kart rip-off analogy because there's absolutely nothing that could save it at this point.

Overall

It's a short analysis on a game that has little to show for itself. The only nice thing I could say about this is that it could take the heat off of Shrek for the XBOX. At least you could find some objectively decent things about that game, like deferred shading and decent music. Not with this game. It's just a game that came out a year after Shrek was released in theaters and is the obligatory low-effort cash-grab.

Think I'm bullshitting you? Look at the footage and then see if you'd want to give the game the benefit of the doubt.