March 29, 2010

Bad Games Everyone's Played: Glover

I see a lot of websites highlighting underrated games- games that nobody's played but are great. That's stupid. Instead, in this new feature I just thought up off the top of my head, I'll examine bad games everyone has played. Today's crappity crap: Glover.
Above: What the hell were they thinking!?

One can only imaging what was going through the collective mind of Hasbro Interactive (Seriously? I didn't even realize they did this.) when they came up with this game. Maybe Dave from accounting was high at the sales meeting and was so fascinated by his hands he blurted out an idea about a glove game. Maybe they truly couldn't come up with anything better. Seriously, this game is from the company that ported Pong to the PlayStation. Also, this. So you play as a glove. Great. Now what? Well what if your nemesis was the other handed glove! And it'll have treasure chests with teeth! And angry bees! And exploding castles! Wait, exploding castles? Volcanoes? I don't remember it being that awesome. Oh yeah, because it wasn't. Nope, you played as a glove who bounced around a ball and that ball was your everything. The ball dies, you're screwed. And if I remember correctly, you could actually pop the ball yourself. I remember this game being weirdly depressing. Like everything was barren and brown. And sometimes still have nightmares about that weird, fat chicken. Alright, before I go on, here's the story from Wikipedia:


In a peaceful, idyllic kingdom, a kindly wizard rules over various lands from his large castle. The beauty and harmony of the kingdom are protected by seven magical crystals, which sit on the spires of the castle. The wizard is aided in his magic by a pair of magic gloves, which are sentient. One day, though, the wizard accidentally mixes together a bad batch of potions, which create a massive explosion. The mishap turns the wizard into a statue, and sends his magic gloves in two directions—one flies out the window, while the other lands in a cauldron. The explosion also shakes the crystals from the spires, and they hurtle to the ground. The glove that landed outside—Glover—quickly casts a spell to transform the crystals into rubber balls to prevent them from shattering to the ground. They bounce away, entering the magical realms around the kingdom. Without the crystals, though, the world transforms into a foggy, desolate wasteland. To make matters worse, the other glove is corrupted by the potion in the cauldron and becomes the villain, Cross-Stitch.
Glover realizes that he must find the seven crystals and restore them to the fountain underneath the castle. He traverses from realm to realm, and must protect the rubber balls at all costs. As he does, Cross-Stitch attempts to thwart him by setting traps and creating monsters, but Glover's magical skill defeats the beasts. As the crystals are returned, the world is gradually restored to its former state. In the end, Glover fights Cross-Stitch in an outer space-themed realm, and recovers the last crystal. The wizard is brought back to life, and uses his magic to purify Cross-Stitch. All ends happily, and the world is once again at peace.

See? Drugs. I mean, it sounded sort of cool, but then all you did was bounce around that damned ball or rolled around that damn ball or walked atop that damn ball or popped that stupid fucking ball and started over!!!
Sharks with comb-overs. Yeah...

So, yeah, it was popular at the time because we were all stupid and didn't know any better. We all just loved to bounce a ball around in the apocalyptic world with crazy farting chickens and walking sharks with hair. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure this game may have single-handedly corrupted a generation. Observe all that could have gone wrong with children's minds:
  • Driven to drugs because they were too young to distinguish between fantasy and reality, so they started up because they realized that doing so made their hand do magical things just like Glover. 
  • Driven to drugs once they were old enough to realize that they used to love this game. 
  • Alternately, they killed themselves after coming to the previous realization. 
  • Arrested for stealing balls. 
  • Arrested for beating people and/or sharks with balls. 
  • Being killed by sharks trying to kill them with said balls.
  • Acquiring nuclear weapons to try and emulate the wasteland atmosphere of the game. 
  • Hacking off a finger because Glover only had four. 
  • Killing and/or maiming themselves because Nintendo lied to them.
  • Trying to explain that a glove can talk and has eyes. Adults, of course, didn't realize they're talking about a game and sent them to a mental institution. 
  • Actually going crazy because they really believed that gloves were magic.
  • Committing suicide, cutting themselves, falling into a deep depression and becoming addicted to antidepressants, or becoming a serial killer because they couldn't deal with the fact that Glover 2 was cancelled. 
Yes, there was originally going to be a Glover 2 for release in 2000. Luckily, as much as God loves fucking with us, He is still merciful. But I will leave you with these really real shots of Glover 2:

And you thought rolling a ball was fun!


Now with less depression!


Yeah, that is a real thing. Can't you just imagine the multiplayer potential!? Yeah, me neither. 

2 comments:

  1. I'm still haunted by the fat-chicken you play tik-tak-toe against

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tldr. Most retarded article I've ever seen.

    ReplyDelete