Sometime fun to read before exams (part 3)

Tragic games counting down part3

No.4 Stalin vs. Martians



Who is Stalin? What a stupid question to ask! Stalin, full name is Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. For those who know who Stalin is, thanks very much for saving my time. For those who don’t who Stalin is, please Google yourself. Who are Martians? Technically, this is how the game development department calls the creatures. To me, if they say so, that I shouldn’t doubt it, because nobody actually saw the Martians at anywhere around the world and the universal. For this game, sadly I haven’t played it myself, so unfortunately I have to use bunch of reference from Gamespot, along with my private comments.

First of all, Stalin vs Martians do have a very interesting background. 1942, summer time, it just happened during War World 2, the real Martians invade USSR, and then attack the army. Therefore, as the highest commander-in –chief Joseph Stalin, he has to personally and privately build a special army to withstand this situation. Without any doubt, this is the most classified secret in the world. Nobody knows about, nobody hears about it. The goal of the game obviously is to control this special army to fight the Martians.

Gamespot gives Stalin vs Martians a nice 1.5 out of 10, and a remark of “abysmal”. On the top of the web page, it the personally comment by Gamespot, it says:” Do not play, look at, or even think about this mangled wreck of a strategy game.” Is this game really that bad? Well, in fact, there is still positive stuff existed; by playing this game, the players finally get to know how Stalin dancing. But how does he dance? I don’t have the chance to see it, but have to tell you that, even the Stalin without dancing is very much laughable. In the Stalin vs Martians, the size of Stalin is maybe triple, or more, the size of all building, and not to mention once it compares to the size of all units.

According to Gamespot, “the "S" is missing from "RTS," there is no "I" in the AI; your foes either wait for your attack in their assigned position or follow scripted paths, but in no way do they ever require you to think strategically.” The comment doesn’t say this is not a RTS game, just not a traditional RTS game. There is no construction system; there is no skill tree. You can directly buy your units, or reinforcements, as long as you have money. Things we do in Starcraft, building barrack>producing units>upgrading technologies, you don’t need to do it here. Beside, all you need to do, or can do, is simple, collecting powers, which is in a shape of rotating coin. There are five different kinds of power: money, armor, fire power, speed and medicine. Plus the unexplainable over-vivid colours, I think whoever made this; they themselves must come from the Mars, because there is no human-being could make this game in this ways, ever.

(Here, it is our beautiful, wonderful, magnificent and yet laughable separation)

Following by the line, there are the top 3 most horrible disasters in the history of video game, or even in the history of human entertainments.

The winner of the Bronze medal, Desert Bus

The opening of the Desert Bus is called: “games stuporfyingly’ like reality!” First, it is just me, or maybe to the others as well, I have no dear about what the line try to say. I guess it says:” The game is as stupor as in the reality.” And the opening scene as says, “Desert Bus was a minigame included in tan unreleased video game slated for publication in April 1995. The goal of Desert Bus: to drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada.” Yes, you are right. Its history background is merely no history background. Its controlling is equally simple; because of the game at time when it was made was way too simple, it had not chance to go into any game console, so today, the only way to play is on computer for free. Direction pad controls its direction, acceleration and break; space bar is the horn, albeit there is nothing on the road beside yourself. However, if this is all you will get, and then game it still sounds ok, but not.

The game was made in 1995; therefore I could not find any official comments or scores, neither in IGN, nor in Gamespot; therefore, it dose explain the blankness of picture and colours. As you can see form the following picture, the picture and gaming interface are somehow very mindless. It does not require any intelligence to understand; in other words, you are not playing the complicated Civilisation series, or Total War series. When you play it, because of the camera angle is from the driver sit inside of the bus, what you see is what you see in the real life, steering wheel, all kinds of meter, two super huge windscreens and the windscreen wipers, a back-mirror which you can only see the back sits, and last but not least, the sun shield with probably your name “Jocko”. Through the windscreen, there is the world outside, a simpler world. At the beginning, you get to choose the period of time in the day between morning, noon, dawn and night. In the night time, the world goes dark, really dark. Other than the road and the area under your headlight, you can’t see anything. In the daytime, you don’t see many things either. Sky above horizon is always blue, the road side is always yellow because it is desert, otherwise why they call it “desert bus” for cry out loud, and the trees and plants are always green. Can this game be any more boring? Yes, they can.

This game is insane, only can develop by lunatics and maniacs. There are at least five features to drive you crazy, and to make you want to kill yourself.

1. The time in the game is parallel to the real world, and this means, in order to finish this game; you will need at least 8 hours from Tucson all the way to Las Vegas.
2. Things like pause or save do not exist. You must finish the game at once without rest. And don’t even think about leave your game aside, and go for a break, because if you do, the bus runs out of gas, game over.
3. Don’t you ever think about tricks, such as using tool to jam the acceleration, it wouldn’t work, because the bus is off the raceway a lot while driving , without constantly re-correction, as soon as the bus on the roadside for too long, game over.
4. In the manual, “Enter” opens the bus door. It sounds fun, but not. You can stop at the bas stop, and you can open the door with “Enter”, however there is not any passenger in the entire game.
5. Let say after more than eight hours of suffering and struggle, you made to the end, Las Vegas. What do you get? One score, nothing but only one score. Congratulations!!

I couldn’t finish the game by myself, however I found somebody else who did. He spent eight hours and 10 minutes. In the record screen, he had one score, but before that loneliness “1”, there are seven “zero” ahead of it. I am really wondering if someone can actually possible to finish this game ninety-nine millions nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand and nine hundred and ninety-nine times. If every time it requires at least 8 hours to finish, do the math, 99,999,999 times 8, equals 799,999,992 hours, or 33,333,333 days, or 91,324.2 years. Holly mother of god!!!!!!!!

Under personal comment: if anyone wants committed suicide but short of reason, then comes to play Desert Bus. After playing three times, I am sure that you will begging for killing.

Please help yourself if you want to play: http://desertbus-game.org/