I Miss Shovelware Games
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 มิ.ย. 2024
- Sometimes even bad things can be good... right? There's no shame in admitting you bought shovelware once before, we all did. Mostly when we were young and didn't know better... So today I just wanted to talk a bit about it!
#gaming #shovelware #retrospective #badgames - เกม
Shoverware games are the most fun when they are so terrible that they become great. X-Men Destiny were a terrible action platformer but had a large enough soul by the heavily crunched dev team that it was a fun weekend exploring everything in the game.
Similarly so with Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup were bad to play but charming enough to be a fun nostalgic memory. Actually, nearly all of the Harry Potter games feel like shovelware.
Nowdays I get my Shovelware fill by buying Mystery Steam Key bundles. So many horrendous games have been added by these bundles but some gems I'd likely never find on my own. I'm Not A Monster First Contact was a intresting mix of Xcom like gameplay that look and feel like some old Sci fi B movies.
Some of the earlier Harry Potter games were actually pretty good games, at least the ones I played on the PS1 and I wasn't even a Harry Potter fan! Maybe that's nostalgia though since I haven't played them in such a long time... And they always confused me since the PS1 version is like a totally different game than the PC version or then also the Gamecube version...
I always wanted to buy some of those mystery bundles but I just know that it will be a waste of money, even if they only cost like... 5€...
Well... that's the side effect of gaming becoming such a big business nowadays. Publishing lots of cheap games isn't sustainable anymore because... well, gamedev got pricier and takes longer, even for shovelware. As for the statement about digital only shovelware not being shovelware... I don't know, for me Shovelware was always a game made cheaply to trick some unsuspecting people (mostly parents) to buy it. They were bad but they were cheap and easily available. Does a game needs to be made by multiple people to be shovelware? Not really? But there are smaller studios that make TRUE digital shovelware. You just have to look for it.
I always seen various budget series (like Simple 2000). Are they all bad? No. They were just... extremely low budget. But hey, Global Defense Force was a part of this series and it was great! There were many games in these cheap series that are quite valid for their lower price.
But yeah, I miss the golden years of shovelware too. I mean... I still can go to the Internet auction site and look at different PS1 or PS2 game and find games I've never heard about that look extremely trash and cheap, buy them and enjoy them (to some degree). Sure, we have little nightmares like games published by Midas or developed by Data Design Interactive... but at least they are interesting conversation pieces now? I would HATE to get one of them back then, but now I definitely can tolerate trash more. I don't know, I just tend do see flickers of care even in the biggest trash heap.
And hey, they still are physical versions of shovelware for modern consoles (at least for PS4, PS5 and Switch). There's a lot less of them though.
...I miss bargain bins in super markets.
Eh.
I played a couple of the Simple 2000 games (OneeChanbara started with them and it's one of my guilty pleasure series) and while I sadly never really warmed up with the Earth Defense Force games I kinda liked the game the same devs made for the Wii, Zangeki no Reginleiv. Mostly because I like the setting of it more. I also kinda hate the giant insect enemies they usually have (despite liking them IRL but there they're not... giant) so it helped that the Wii game has more normal enemies and not TOO many big critters.
Yeah, it's easier to stomach getting bad games now, since... you got more money than when you were a kid (At least I hope so). Helps when you are basically not forced to play it because it's gonna be your only new game for a while...
Like I said shovelware never truly left but it's just one of those mind things where back then it felt... funnier somehow? Not totally sure how to put it into words but now when there's a lame asset flip game it's just "Oh yeah, that's just another lame asset flip game" but seeing some of the older shovelware just kinda makes me smile when I see how bad some of them are. Not to say some newer shovelware also can't be funny.
Last time I went to a store that had video games there was obviously still some shovelware, but 90% of it was pretty much stuff for kids while back in the day it felt shovelware was aiming for all kinds of age groups. Which just doesn't work anymore now when there's the internet really...
oh my god when you whipped out the phoenix games list and i made eye contact with g-force i felt so vindicated, only to find out it was a COMPLETELY different g-force from the one i remember playing! mine was a licensed game from the movie of the same name (the one about spy guinea pigs) and of all the weird branded shovelware video games i've played that one is the one i remember the most... glad to see that the 'random pile of bargain bin video games' is universal because i have sooo many memories of wanting a cool game and having to settle for like shrek 2 for the gamecube ...
yep... made this mistake with shovel knight... never again...!
😂😂😂👍👍👍👍🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
While I did own some bigger budget games in my lifetime, a lot of my childhood games were "shovelware", one of my favorites is still Ultimate I Spy, a wii original game based on the I Spy books and PC games. While it isnt the best in long term or replayablity, I still end up at some point just doing a complete replay of the game and remember how stupid the rocket minigame and how jank the drum minigame is.
I also had some fun shovelware on the DS but the hardest in my opinion was the Danny Phantom Urban Jungle game, it is so unfair that I never actually completed it once. The other hard as balls shovelware made for kids I had was The Secret Saturdays: The Beast Of The 5th Sun for the wii. Replaying it recently made me realize that I mustve made my father play through most of it for me because theres no way a childrens game from 2008 was this hard, maybe it was easier on other ports but the wii one was BAD. I still love it tho because underrated cartoon
I also bought Spyro enter the dragonfly as a kid :(
My condolences...
I picked ant bully for the gamecube once. Genuinly the worst game I ever played
4D BOXING
Er there is a gold mine of it on the switch eshop. It never left or went anywhere.
That's basically what I say at the end though...
Is this not the kind of games that end up on Playstation Plus or Xbox Game Pass? Not small enough to be "indie asset flips" as you describe, not loving enough to be "true indie" games, but stuff within the realms of single-A games? Really I think what you're missing is the janky PS2 aesthetic. Bad games nowadays still look basically decent because tech has advanced far enough that if you're reasonably moderate with your goals you can make a functional product. Obviously it's not going to look as good as AAA stuff but it's much easier to make a passable-looking game that doesn't fall into the uncanny valley.
Yeah, I could have explained that point a bit more! In the end I would most likely just also chalk it up to nostalgia like I said. I "know" that shovelware still exists and just changed like that but it just doesn't feel the same because of it.
I remember buying a ton of games used for PS2 at an EB Games for 10 cents each and most were by Phoenix and blast. All of them were garbage