Man, the stuff Mad Magazine can churn out. This list is supposed to be the "50 Worst Things About Video Games". See how many of them apply to anything you've played recently.
1. Game designers who can’t understand why more women play video games, especially since they feature such outstanding female role models such as a globetrotting archeologist (with big boobs), world-class volleyball champions (with big boobs), and, of course, easily murdered hookers (with big boobs).
2. Console manufacturers selling systems without basic essentials like memory cards or a second controller, so you have to shell out another 60 bucks before you even see as much as a hair on Luigi’s mustache.
3. The once-realistic Sims "busting out" into settings so fake and ridiculous, its only a matter of time before we see The Sims Team Up With Sonic the Hedgehog to Take on the Giant Fire-Breathing Turtles.
4. Sega’s long pathetic parade of short lived systems, from the Sega CD to the 32X to the Saturn to the Dreamcast, establishing a legacy of failure on its way to rivaling that of the Chicago Cubs.
5. The "total time played" on your memory card, which only prove to your parents how many hours you’ve wasted playing video instead of doing you homework.
6. Games that make to much of their features "unlockable." Just to enjoy everything, you’re forced to jump through more hoops than a dolphin at Sea World.
7. Downloading "patches" for the latest and greatest massive-multiplayer extravaganza. You mean our 50 bucks AND the monthly fee didn’t actually include a finished product?
8. Mind-numbingly dull "cinema sequences"- as if we really needed to interrupt the game with ten minutes of bad acting and cliched dialogue to explain the deep motives and back story of why Ratchet and Clank are running and jumping.
9. Choppy, second-rate video games designed for cell phones. Was text messaging not a useless enough to drain battery power?
10. Video game magazines that spend months hyping a game as the second coming, lavishing it with praise and eagerly counting down to its release date, only to dismiss it when it comes out as third- rate, over-hyped crap.
11. Video game reviews from Maxim or FHM— as if their readers will actually stop "juggling their joysticks" to photos of Eliza Dushku long enough to go out and buy the game.
12. All tasks that involve looking for keys to open a door, secret passage ways or chests or anything else crucial to your success. You mean a character running around tirelessly with ten machine guns and thousands of rounds of ammo can’t shoot the freakin’ door open?
13. Selling multiple versions of the same Pokemon games with different creatures in each one, so you have to buy them both. Its almost as shameless as making collectors buy two identical magazines with a different cover.
14. Racing through the Grand Canyon in a super-charged 350Z with ARC spoilers and HKS turbochargers . . . then turning off Gran Turismo 4 and driving to work in your 1988 Honda Civic with AM/FM radio and manual windows.
15. Wannabe gamers who drop $200 on a system and another $50 on a game, then immediately look up the cheat codes that make playing as easy and pointless as possible.
16. The "Plug and Play" Atari system, which seems cool until you actually buy it and realize that advances in graphics, color and sound were made for a reason.
17. Falling for EA’s annual con of forking 50 bucks for the improved version of Madden Football, since "improved" apparently means adding a couple of dozen bench players and seven new versions of Madden yelling "Boom! He sure knows how to tackle!"
18. Vietnam games that make you wonder if any national tragedy is off limits to crass exploitation.
19. Getting psyched to watch Spider-Man 2 on your brand new PlayStation Portable, then realizing the battery will get you about as far as the opening credits.
20. Donkey Konga, which combines the ‘60s-era art of bongo drumming with none of the mind-bending hallucinogens that made it tolerable in the first place.
21. Finding out that your school photo looks just as dorky and pathetic digitally pasted on to a cool skater’s body in Tony Hawk’s Underground as it does hanging in your parents den.
22. Rockstar’s "exclusive" deal to keep Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation 2, only to turn around and put a better version on Xbox a few months later. For some inexplicable reason, we were expecting upstanding ethical behavior from a company whose game glorifies a hooker-killing, drug-dealing gangbanger.
23. Having to "level up" your characters in role-playing game to the point where it requires more work than your actual job.
24. Highly -anticipated releases like Half-Life 2 and Doom 3, which boast innovative, thrilling new ways for you to, uh . . . kill stuff.
25. Mario’s ridiculous Italian accent, which comes in just behind Grand Theft Auto: Vice City’s infamous "Kill all the Haitians" message as the worst ethnic offense in gaming.
26. Having a balance of ten cents on your arcade card, which is totally good for nothing and yet you STILL can’t bring yourself to chuck it.
27. Obnoxious video game buddies who successfully guilt you into letting them "try this level one more time," which quickly turns into a half hour, then hours on end and, finally, daybreak.
28. The idiotic realization that video games are good for hand-eye coordination, as if that weren’t true of any other activity doing a thing to another thing.
29. Sports games that realistically simulate the athletic experience of shots of players scratching themselves— as if getting an up-close view of Yao Ming playing pocket pool is why we fantasize about playing in the NBA.
30. Games with development cycles that are so long and with release dates forever delayed— even the friggin’ Sopranos produce new episodes faster.
31. Having to blow $9.99 on a book of tip codes because the game you want them for is the ONLY one that hasn’t been typed up for free on the Internet.
32. Your disgusting friend who grabs your controller with his clammy hands immediately after licking Cheetos residue off each and every finger.
33. Juiced up versions of old Atari games, which are way too complex for fans of the originals and way too lame for everybody else.
34. Trying to make a boring game like golf "extreme" by adding violence, scantily-clad babes and dubbing it Outlax Golf, meaning we’ll soon have Outlaw Shuffleboard, X-treme Badminton and Ultra-Psycho Desperado Horseshoes.
35. The horrible realization that you’re such a spaz that if you played Dance Dance Revolution head-to-head with William Hung, you’d lose. Bad.
36. With the endless success of cash-cow series like Final Fantasy, Medal of Honor, and The Legend of Zelda, virtually every game out there is either a sequel to a past game or the inferior imitation of a hit game. These days, an actual new, original gaming experience is rarer than a funny David Spade movie.
37. The Army’s cost-cutting use of video games to train its soldiers, which will really pay off when we finally invade the frozen wastelands of Tallon IV.
38. Blowing on NES cartridges and holding down "RESET". We know that was along time ago, but man, that sucked.
39. Saving a whopping four bucks by buying pre-owned ones— when you do the math, its like getting 13 scratched-up disks of dubious playability for the price of twelve!
40. Companies that make a big deal of hiring slumming D-list Hollywood talent to record a few sound clips for their game, as if David Arquette’s involvement has ever made anything better.
41. Now that multi-player games are best played with online opponents, video game recluses can finally stop bothering to make friends to play with, thus freeing them of their last tether to normal human society.
42. Games that boast 50 hours of gameplay when 48 of them consist of re-tracing your tracks through the same area you’ve already been through nine freakin’ times.
43. Trying to decide which sucks more: movies based on video games or video games based on movies.
44. Enter the Matrix: The only thing in the world that could actually make the two Matrix sequels seem coherent and interesting.
45. The ESRB ratings, which are a big help for parents who can’t decide wether or not Killzone is suitable for their six-year-old.
46. Sims- addicted roommates who practice better personal hygiene online than they do in real life.
47. Cheesy gaming articles in Time and Newsweek that are the journalistic equivalent of your mom trying to dance to Outkast.
48. Disc-5 of the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas box set— we just don’t like it.
49. Realizing that a) there’s not a woman’s beach volleyball player in the world who looks like that and b) if there were, she wouldn’t sleep with a pasty-faced dork who plays electronic volleyball all day.
50. Games that, despite being based on "cool" characters, just plain suck. You know, like Spy Vs. Spy.
