A while back I wrote a review for Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg. In it, I stated that it is "certainly not a bad game", but its lack of depth and variety caused it to fall short of expectations inherent in a Sonic Team title.
Jeremy would like to contest my statements:
listen man, you've never heard of progressive scan mode. in that mode the graphics are almost mindrattlingly good. this is one thing that induces people to buy a progressive scan cord. and furthermore, billy hatcher isn't a game for you. i like the irritating music and the simular missions that only put each other in a different environment and be harder. i also like his stupid cookookakoo. you didn't mention the 3 other characters, rolly, chick, and bantam. chick is small but fast, rolly is just about everything billy should be without being billy's best, and bantam is probably the best character with his strength. furthermore, it doesn't end beating dark raven, you have to collect every single emblem of courage to get to the giant egg. chick coins are different from mini game coins, the blue and red ones. you never acually cared for the innovation and difficulty for the egg. the difficulty just makes it a better game to play. if you want to unlock new characters, beat new levels. and NEVER review another semi cutesy game, you just personally don't like them! i chose Billy Hatcher over Viewtiful Joe, how's that sound? i needed a challenge. sure, you CAN just get all the golden eggs hatched and beat all the bosses, but it doesn't really end there! that's where the fun part comes in. go back to your blood and gore and never play another game like this!
respectfully, Jeremy Stalnaker, don't get me wrong about this.
Well, Jeremy, let me "respectfully" respond.
First of all, I have no idea where you get the impression that I only play games of the "blood and gore" ilk. Is it simply because I didn't care for Billy Hatcher? As it stands, I love quirky, "cutesy" games. Shit, I'm a Bonk devotee. The bloodiest games I get into are Castlevania.
Next, I in fact found the game to be quite easy, lacking of any real challenge whatsoever; which you might have discerned had you read my review closely enough. In case you haven't, let me give you an excerpt:
"Billy Hatcher can easily be completed in a mere weekend’s time."
How's that?
My main gripe with the game was that it was shallow, unoriginal, and mildly irritating at times. And as I stated in the review, the kookiness of a little boy running around in a chicken suit didn't erase the feeling that I had played this type of game a million times. To each his own, man, and if you enjoy the endless looping of grating chicken sounds, by all means, have at it. Just remember what happened to Schuman.
That being said, to prefer Billy Hatcher to Viewtiful Joe is just plain insanity. But like I said, to each his own.
And for the record, I have heard of progressive scan. I just don't believe that a game must be run in progressive scan to be on par with what is expected from a GameCube game.
Contest Winner As promised, I'm ready to announce the winner of the Happy Tree Friends DVD. I chose this guy because he seemed to truly appreciate the humor behind HTF. And here is his letter:
Hey John, This is probably the hardest thing to write to especially since I just found out today what the Happy Tree Friends are. I only wish I had found these on DVD sooner. I watched the video downloads you linked to and I can't get enough of this stuff! I keep replaying the one where Flippy, the soldier animal, goes crazy and kills everyone while playing hide & seek!
I really have no idea why I deserve it more than anyone else except for the fact that it would save me 20 bucks buying it for myself. It's not like I am a long time fan of the series or watch it on TV or anything, but I am now hooked.
Thanks for turning me on to this!
Steve
Your welcome, Steve. Email me your address and I'll get it out to you ASAP.
Oh, by the way, Mkistler, I realize I haven't sent you your Lord of the Rings prize yet, but I'll get it out soon. It's going to take some packaging, and as usual, I'll try to throw some extra goodies in for making you wait so long.
Here are a couple more entries:
Well, Happy Tree Friends is it? And I have to give you reasons why I deserve it? You know what. I'm not going to. In fact I shall instead give you reasons why I do not deserve the "Happy Tree Friends" dvd thingy.
1. I'm Skinny. Who would give a skinny guy DVD's? I sure woule not and hope you would not succumb to that level.
2. I like TMNT. I mean come on, anyone who likes TMNT, obviously is insane and should never be given Happy Tree Friends DVD's.
3. I have been coming to this site since say one. What loser would be coming to a awsome site such as GWX since day one. Obviously, I have abandoment issues and should not have Happy Tree Friends on DVD.
4. I love video games. Whoever likes videogames, should be tortured to playing old school games for the rest of there life. Plus, they should never be exposed ti Happy Tree Friends.
5. I love you guys. Clearly, I have no life and think way too highly of the supremeness that is GWX, and Happy Tree Friends would fill that pathetic void in my life and give me a reson to live. Why ruin a good thing?
6. Your just too cool. I mean, why would you, a cool person, give me, a person with no life and likes TMNT, and plays videogames, and has been throughly enjoying your site since day one and is way to skinny, be rewarded with such a prize.
I think the above reasons are sufficient enough on why I should not get the "Happy Tree Friends" DVD...... Wait a minute, I could just have not even sent you a letter. Oh well, its typed and you need something to read. Stay cool.
Ken
Well Ken, all of those are very good reasons; and plenty entertaining to boot. Your loyalty is to be commended, but perhaps next time.
Here's another:
<--- deservs to win the prize b/c i am top poster at the forums, and b/c i entered like all of ur give aways and still have not won.... eventhough i rerally wanted some of the anime u gave away
Andre
I appreciate your entry, Andre. If you really want some anime, you'll be happy with some of the next contests. Be patient. I guarantee you'll win eventually.
I hope you've taken a moment to check out our most recent Nokia Feature. If not, take a moment and check it out. I have to say that while I am slightly more impressed with the machine, I still have quite a few reservations about it. Read the article to get the lowdown.
While we're on the subject of new handhelds, you may recall me mentioning a few weeks back that we were planning on doing a hands on feature with the Zodiac after having been promised demo units and games from Tapwave. I hate to promise things and not deliver, but we're having trouble ironing out the details with Tapwave, so if the promised feature never materializes, please don't think we haven't done all we can on our end to make it happen. I'll keep you posted.
Weak Watching my beloved Timberwolves fall to the Utah freaking Jazz last night has left me deflated and bitter. I've never seen a player get kicked out of a game for asking the ref what the call was and I've never seen a player get a technical foul for running backwards. I've also never thrown an empty soda bottle at the television in disgust, but I guess last night was the night of broken precedents.
Enough whining about sports. Ken's going for the record of most CWJ letters in a week:
Yeah, I realize that just sent you an e-mail only a few hours ago, but I also did know I would be getting back on.
G4, I have watched a few times. It to me seems poorly set-up and has some horrible hosts. The contests they hold on there are lame (like that battle arena one) to be just a little nice, they do a bad job at commenteing and just the whole idea of watching people play videogames on t.v., who you don't even know. They do however, have decent reports on news in gaming, (nowhere near as good as GWX of course) and there editorials are somewhat interesting (maybe for an single-celled organism at least, considering Brendon's and Matlocks are 1000 times better). Overall, it has just enough buzz (buzz, because I could not think of a better word) to keep my attention for a small bit. It seems really like watching GPTV late at night more then a good channel. Well, all I really had to say was that as a whole is sucks, but does have a few, and I mean "A FEW" good shows. Anyway, stay cool, and be yourself casper... I mean John. (Just Kidding)
Ken
As I mentioned earlier, my cable provider just recently started carrying G4 and I've been glued to it ever since. Please do not take this as me saying that I actually enjoy the programming or feel that it is of some sort of must see TV. I guess being a hopeless videogame junkie gives me some sort of mindless need to watch anything that has to do with gaming.
The shows aren't terrible, and I actually find a couple of them somewhat entertaining. My favorite, of course, are the reruns of Starcade, the old competitive arcade show. However, watching the fashion trends from the early 80s could be more entertaining than the show itself.
Ken, you nailed it on the head when you mentioned their hosts. There are a couple that are downright unwatchable, the least of which is certainly not that moron from "Sweat". Is he Vanilla Ice? Why this Fred Durst wannabe gets so close to the camera is beyond me. And he sure can throw down the dope urban lingo, yo.
I swear he's Vanilla Ice.
Watching the music-video-like bits is something beyond my explanation as well. I stare at it like a drooling dog. "Ooh...Mortal Kombat Gold. That game sucked but I'm going to sit and watch three minutes of footage anyway." Like I said, it's beyond my powers of explanation, but I'll keep watching it.
Moving along, I've told you folks numerous times that I will publish any letter you send in, regardless of its content or the subjects you'd like to tackle. That's the entire point of this column, after all. I don't like publicizing my social or political views because for the most part, I don't feel these are topics that a video game dork is qualified to discuss in a public forum. However, if one of you wants to have a go at it, I'll do my best to oblige.
With that in mind, our Italian friend Alessandro has some thoughts on the Iraqi war:
Ciao John, maybe you don't expect a letter like this from me, but i felt you needed to discuss something serious in your column, and it's the complete nonsense known as Iraq. From here, in Italy, it's like a shitty war movie updated every day, nothing more, but i feel deeply for all the guys stuck there fighting a worthless war, waged only on oil and personal feelings. Maybe it's just me, but Saddam alone couldn't have killed the 13.000 people dead in the past six months, all without even touching the whole WMD debacle. Maybe you won't publish this letter, and i can understand your motivations, but i'd like to hear your opinion anyway.
Keep on cookin' -Alez-
Again, any topic is open for discussion here in the kitchen (Is that lame? It sounded lame), so don't worry about sending something "too serious".
I have to agree with you, Alez, on a few of your points. And while I won't go so far as to say that this war was simply for "oil and personal feelings", I do know this: 1) Bush and Cheney's buddies at Haliburton are making a load of money off this war, 2) We have yet to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and I do believe that was the entire motive for us invading that country, and 3) Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are both at large.
I also share your concern that the longer we piss around over there, the more hatred and resentment will build up towards Americans, potentially resulting in more disaster.
It's a touchy situation, and again, one that I'm not qualified to discuss with any sort of authority. Those are just my thoughts. If anyone would like to get in on this conversation or share your thoughts on the matter, feel free to drop me a line.
Next time, I'll be announcing the winner of the Happy Tree Friends DVD. Stay tuned.
Ghostly Yes, I am whiter than off white. It's true. Not as white as this picture would have you believe, but still pasty white nevertheless. I guess that's what I get for taking a picture directly below a flourescent light. Ken feels like poking a bit of fun.
Dude, you have got the whitest hand I have ever seen in my entire life. It looks likes marshmellows with callyflower (I think thats how its spelled) stuck in them. Thats great, thats great. Okay sorry, I just needed to get that out of the way first. Those little zip-zaps things are quite spiff. My friend has one and it works better then those radios shack ones (must be Mario Magic) anyway, how was halloween for you? Sorry you could not find a TMNT costume, but we have a weird costume shop near my house and they have a crapload of different costumes. I just today in fact picked up Pearl Jams Live cd from when they were in New York, New York. It's just beautiful man, considering I typically don't like live tour CD's that much, this one has my mind set changed. It makes me wish I was there myself. Oh well, all's well that ends well. Anyway, I will be sending you an e-mail with some Bonk 3 possible sales (I still have not give up yet. Its been like 5 or 6 months now I think) that way, you can sort figure about buying it form these dudes or not. Well, stay cool, have a good week, and keep posting in the forums.
Ken
First off, I'd like to note how funny it is for me that a reader is encouraging me to post in the GWX forums. That's some good stuff and why I hold Mr. Ken near and dear to my heart.
Onto Pearl Jam. Surprisingly, I tend to enjoy listening to their immense stack of live albums more than their studio albums. At least their current studio albums, anyway. Ever since they lost Jack Irons I've been losing more and more interest in them. No Code is still my favorite Pearl Jam album.
Halloween was incredibly odd, thank you very much. What began as an unexpectedly dull party turned into some sort of Andy Warhol, Studio 54 sort of affair. It's amazing how one or two people can change the entire dynamic of a group. I won't go into explicit detail, but I will say that I think a few laws were broken.
The evening wound up with a bunch of us attending the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I've seen the movie dozens of times and knew that some crazy shit went down at the theater viewings of the movie, but had no idea exactly what I was getting myself into. Those of you who are into this sort of thing may read what I'm about to say and think "he just doesn't get it." Well, assholes, you're right. What I experienced that night was the dumbest, most ridiculously lame experience of my entire twenty-seven year existence on this earth. Sure, being a social misfit/outcast is all well and good, and something I can appreciate fully. But these people seriously need to step outside of their parents' basement every now and then and see the world.
Again, don't get me wrong. I love the movie to death. The music is bad ass and the plot is so freakishly bizarre that I can't help but adore it. But no, I do not get the little rituals and ceremonies that go with viewing it in public.
Within the next couple of days I'll finally be announcing the winner of the Happy Tree Friends DVD, so get your letters in now. I'll also be discussing my impressions after recently having received G4 on my cable lineup. In the meantime, what do you guys think of this crazy station? Is it a gamers wet dream or a public display of stupidity?
