Tuesday, August 14, 2007
I'm quacking up!
I am now the proud owner of all three next generation consoles. When Twisted Metal 2 sang its siren song in 1997, weakening my resolve until I finally purchased a PlayStation, people were very accepting. Who wouldn't succumb to the call of wanton vehicular destruction? In 2002, Hot Shots Golf 3 proved too temping for me. I needed a PlayStation 2 so I could "grip it and rip it" with John Daly. A dubious choice, but HSG has its share of fans the world over. So what was the impetus for the PlayStation 3 to enter my home? Super Rub a Dub - the duckling wrangling game.
Obviously, I didn't get a PS3 just so I could play this water navigating tech demo, but it will always have the distinction of being my first PS3 game. Try as I might to distance myself from some horrible decisions in my past, I can't quite shake the aura of stink that surrounds me since I made Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo my first DVD purchase. Hopefully, the pastel-laden Super Rub, despite being largely forgettable, won't carry the same mean-spirited labels.
To anyone who would laugh at my seemingly ridiculous choice, I would counter that any man with a taste for the truly important things in life would have been powerless against the awe-filled pull of this mighty downloadable game. It is duckies in a bathtub! That's the entire game. You play as the *ahem* mother duck and you simply free your pre-natal, bubble-encased ducklings and lead them down the drain. Obviously, there are horrible consequences if you do not meet your task in an acceptable amount of time. Toy sharks, only slightly less fearsome than the real things, will savagely devour the helpless fowls if one strays too close to its always chomping jaws. If this game ditched the coloring book look and went with gritty realism, this would be too gruesome to show before midnight. But in its sugar-coated form, you merely see your ducks break off into tiny duck pieces before dissolving in the seemingly acidic water.
Even though unbridled joy is bursting from every pixel of this silly game, I was initially hesitant to even play the thing. I have grown to loath motion controlled games in the last few months. What started as a simple novelty has crippled the classic gaming experience I have been enjoying for the last two decades. But Super Rub is not a traditional game. Without the gimmicky controls, such a cheery title would not even exist in the first place. So I could lean and laugh like the developers intended. Super Rub is, after all, only $3. It's hard to find faults with a game that is so simple and so earnest in what it is trying to do. The water is beautiful, the ducks are, well, content to sit there while their predator circles, and the motion controls make the whole thing unpredictable and goofy.
Super Rub a Dub will eventually drift into complete irrelevance for most people, I assume it has already been largely forgotten, But I am glad I spent a few bucks to make it my first PS3 game. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to cram a few more trusting birds down a drain pipe.
Obviously, I didn't get a PS3 just so I could play this water navigating tech demo, but it will always have the distinction of being my first PS3 game. Try as I might to distance myself from some horrible decisions in my past, I can't quite shake the aura of stink that surrounds me since I made Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo my first DVD purchase. Hopefully, the pastel-laden Super Rub, despite being largely forgettable, won't carry the same mean-spirited labels.
To anyone who would laugh at my seemingly ridiculous choice, I would counter that any man with a taste for the truly important things in life would have been powerless against the awe-filled pull of this mighty downloadable game. It is duckies in a bathtub! That's the entire game. You play as the *ahem* mother duck and you simply free your pre-natal, bubble-encased ducklings and lead them down the drain. Obviously, there are horrible consequences if you do not meet your task in an acceptable amount of time. Toy sharks, only slightly less fearsome than the real things, will savagely devour the helpless fowls if one strays too close to its always chomping jaws. If this game ditched the coloring book look and went with gritty realism, this would be too gruesome to show before midnight. But in its sugar-coated form, you merely see your ducks break off into tiny duck pieces before dissolving in the seemingly acidic water.
Even though unbridled joy is bursting from every pixel of this silly game, I was initially hesitant to even play the thing. I have grown to loath motion controlled games in the last few months. What started as a simple novelty has crippled the classic gaming experience I have been enjoying for the last two decades. But Super Rub is not a traditional game. Without the gimmicky controls, such a cheery title would not even exist in the first place. So I could lean and laugh like the developers intended. Super Rub is, after all, only $3. It's hard to find faults with a game that is so simple and so earnest in what it is trying to do. The water is beautiful, the ducks are, well, content to sit there while their predator circles, and the motion controls make the whole thing unpredictable and goofy.
Super Rub a Dub will eventually drift into complete irrelevance for most people, I assume it has already been largely forgotten, But I am glad I spent a few bucks to make it my first PS3 game. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to cram a few more trusting birds down a drain pipe.
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