I'm going to assume you're all familiar with the concept of cursed commercials, commercials that stick out for the wrong reasons. If not check out Chadtronic for a crash course.
Chad may have me beat when it comes to reviewing commercials, but whether anyone knows it or not, I'm gonna start digging where no one had really attempted before. Cursed flash games.
As a challenge, I won't review fan-made stuff, it wouldn't be fair for me to mock something someone did for fun (let alone people who can accomplish more than I), no, I'm gonna go after what was officially licensed, the world of those old flash games you've seen on kids network websites.
Be real, we all visited Nick.com or CartoonNetwork.com when we were kids and played their games, I mean they still have games but none up to par. For any game, even old Shockwave ones, it's easy to determine their age based on certain nuances, though age won't save how poorly they look nowadays. But trust me, even by simple flash/shockwave game standards the ones I'm gonna single out look plain awful.
So for one of each, let's get into this.
Ed Edd n' Eddy: Sewer Rat Balloon Bash
Already the title is giving me mixed signals, reminds me of a certain era of YouTube.
Apparently this game was released on Cartoon Network's Australian site. I have no specification on the date since the Archive.org link for it goes as far back as 2011. This would go for this and the next game, but I'm gonna assume this came out when the show was relatively new, 2000 the latest. There was an article for this on the Ed, Edd n' Eddy wiki but it got deleted, along with articles for other games.
There're two modes to this game, as implied by the title.
In the first, you play as Ed, where you're suspended in the air by a rope held by Edd and have to evade three rows of rats to collect bottles for cash. It seems harmless enough, that is until Ed takes damage. Just know it sounds absolutely nothing like Ed. I have a feeling it's a stock sound, which is why I heard it in Bart Bash as well.
The rat rounds end after you get ten bottles, there's no time limit, which is good since the challenge lies in how long Edd can hold you before his arms give out.
Then there's the second mode.
It's a water-balloon fight between Eddy and one of the Kankers. You may think it's Lee, but it's actually Marie. You have to assume this game was made sometime after the series first aired, Cartoon Network would've at least provided notes to their Australian branch for this. Sure, I consider Marie to be my favorite of the Kankers, but consistency is all I ask. Ironically in another Ed, Edd n' Eddy Shockwave game Edd faces off against Lee, though that goes with the episode the game was based on.
Things go off, and I imagine your eyes are drawn to this:
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| How's that arthritis? |
And it just keeps on going until you die. I mean literally the game's on loop it's a point grind.
Went from kinda cursed to pretty cursed, that's like a 6/10.
Check it out here:
Spongebob SquarePants: Run for the Krusty Krab
Before I give my thoughts, here's a testimony from someone part of a SpongeBob forum that potentially predates SBMania.
"This is honestly one of the worst games I've ever played. It seems like the makers never watched a single episode of SpongeBob. The jellyfish don't look at all like the ones on the show. The only moves SpongeBob has are jump and duck. The controls are delayed much, and the gameplay is terrible. All you do is avoid jellyfish and jump over stuff. And to make it worse, the difficulty level is very high. The only good thing about this game is that the graphics are sharp." -United Spongebob - 2002
I had seen the SpongeBob games of old, and for many of them, they were consistent, even ones that were slightly off seemed legitimate. For this game, it's uncanny, made worse by the fact that this was on Nickelodeon's official website.
Some speculated this game came out in the year 2000, though I have a feeling this might've been made while SpongeBob was still being conceptualized, and the designers were going by notes, accounting for the in-game oddities.
The basic idea behind this is that you have to get SpongeBob to Mr. Krabs, the kicker is that you have to run and leap over obstacles. Simple stuff, aside from the fact that the game is unbelievably brutal.
The key to this game is momentum, without it you can't clear most obstacles. You have to keep running because obstacles could be centimeters within one another, and you'd be unable to turn back to get a running start. Even as early as level 2 the game does you dirty. Think I'm being over-the-top because the cool reviewers do it, here, you tell me if this is hyperbole.
You have to dodge a jellyfish, jump over a moat and a tall barricade, and you have to keep your momentum.
You have three abilities, run, jump and duck, but ducking is underutilized. That barricade in the cap above, you can't duck under it. I imagine there're obstacles that'd work with it in later levels, but nobody I know of has ever made it that far. Through my experience and I'm certain many others, we've died at level 2. I imagine the programers never made a proper ending so they had to make the game so difficult to get through that nobody would see their lack of progress.
I spoiled it in the cap above, but let me sum up the design in one other.
It's clear the developers only took the smallest amount of notes on most of the designs. Mr. Krabs looks fine, for a JPEG, but SpongeBob looks like he isn't finished. His craters are not so apparent (they look like boils almost), and when it comes to jellyfish, it doesn't even look like the jellyfish as they appeared in Tea at the Treedome. It's a straight up IRL jellyfish, almost.
If I had to give the game anything, the graphics are admittedly nice for a game like this.
Cursed only for the fact that they give you one level to beat and for the fact that they obviously didn't consult the staff on the show, this is like a 5/10.
So what other official cursed games are out there? I could use some material.
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