Bad goosebumps cover

October 12 – October 18

Section: 

Perhaps inspired by this GWJ thread, I’d picked out my 10 most guilt-laden games and stacked them before the TV cabinet, to remind myself to play through them once and for all. They sat unplayed for a week and then were nicked by junkies. Damned if I’m replacing them, but they were valued as if new, and nothing justifies indulgent spending like being burgled, so suddenly the new consoles (and their releases) are within my grasping tentac–hands! I mean hands. I have hands, like a human male should.

Aaand yet, this week is telling me to hold off. There’s a lot of ineligibles: remakes, director’s cuts, ports, DLC. These are probably going to attract all the interest. Some movie tie-ins. More games being released in one week with “Paint” in the title than ever before (i.e., 2)!

So if I had to pick one, I’d be a PC snob for one more week and run with Human Resource Machine, partly because it’s based on being a good little office drone and partly because it could be the first game since Rocky’s Boots to demystify this whole programming and logic malarkey.

What say you, rest of team?

Chris "C" Cesarano

Ah, yes, Goosebumps. The book series so terrible that the only way to create a movie out of one of those atrocious "novels" was to make a two-hour fan-wank to all of them. What a great way to preserve people's nostalgia for horrible things rather than expose them to how terrible their taste was.

Speaking of terrible taste, my own horrific palate is going for Dragon Quest Heroes. I'm not really very well versed in the Dragon Quest series beyond the first on the NES and its GameBoy Color remake, and I've played absolutely none of Koei Tecmo's Warriors games, so it seems perfect for me to choose as game of the week.

Though it does look legitimately fun.

Erik "wordsmythe" Hanson

Were I confident or into doing research, I might here be trumpeting the unheralded wonders of Mushroom 11, Human Resource Machine, Rogue State, Planetbase, CMYW, Ceres or Age of Decadence, but as I am not prone to spending more time on research than it takes to confirm we aren't the only ones claiming these games are releasing this week (and catching some descriptions and trailers in doing so), I'll say that my intrigue alone isn't enough to give me confidence. Any one of those game could be great, or could become a cautionary tale (particularly Rogue State, which is walking a pretty thin line, thematically).

So I'm going to go with a title that has earned credibility with me, though it's about as light a game as you'll ever expect a crunchy old pedant like me to ever play: The Jackbox Party Pack 2. I got to try the first one at Mr. Banks's bachelor weekend (we are really that cool), and the sequel seems just as much fun for a roomful of friends and their libations.

Greg "Doubtingthomas396" Decker

Hey, Goosebumps is still a thing.

Huh.

Anyway, I don't see how there can be any other choice is week. Yoshi's Wooly World continues Nintendo's grand tradition of reimagining their core franchises in craft materials. I've enjoyed every one so far, from papercraft Mario to embroidered and clay Kirbies.

I'm very much looking forward to decoupage Metroid. Until then, Yoshi's Wooly World is my Game of the Week.

This week:

PC

  • Animal Gods
  • Hyperdrive Massacre
  • The Secret of Tremendous Corporation
  • Minecraft: Story Mode - A Telltale Games Series
  • Paint the Town Red
  • The Jackbox Party Pack 2
  • Ancestory
  • Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 1: The Order of the Stone
  • The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone
  • Paint it Back
  • Escape from Puzzlegate
  • Mushroom 11
  • SkyScrappers
  • Zenohell
  • Lucadian Chronicles
  • Human Resource Machine
  • Rogue State
  • Planetbase
  • Eternal Step
  • CMYW
  • Ceres
  • Age of Decadence

PS4

  • The Talos Principle
  • Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below
  • Wasteland 2: Director's Cut
  • The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone
  • Grand Ages: Medieval
  • Back to the Future: The Game 30th Anniversary Edition
  • Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 1: The Order of the Stone
  • Final Fantasy VII
  • Bedlam
  • One Upon Light

Xbox One

  • Wasteland 2: Director's Cut
  • The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone
  • Back to the Future: The Game 30th Anniversary Edition
  • Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 1: The Order of the Stone
  • Goosebumps: The Game
  • Laserlife

Wii U

  • Yoshi's Wooly World

PS3

  • The Arland Atelier Trilogy
  • Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 1: The Order of the Stone

Xbox 360

  • Back to the Future: The Game 30th Anniversary Edition
  • Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 1: The Order of the Stone
  • Goosebumps: The Game

PS Vita

  • Corpse Party: Blood Drive

Nintendo 3DS

  • The Legend of Legacy
  • The Smurfs
  • Goosebumps: The Game

Comments

So many games I want to play this week... Almost all for PS4.

Dragon Quest Heroes is preordered, and the rest will have to wait a few weeks while my disposable income recovers.

Finally getting the first of the much anticipated witcher 3 mega-DLC rollouts! So excited!

I'm all over Yoshi, but I'm pretty sure that one's gonna wait for Christmas. Wasteland 2, however, will be played. Oh yes.

The only way to create a movie out of one of those atrocious "novels" was to make a two-hour fan-wank to all of them. What a great way to preserve people's nostalgia for horrible things rather than expose them to how terrible their taste was.

Wow. Are the books that bad? I've only ever seen the show and I love that because it's one of the few scary shows for kids.

garion333 wrote:

I'm all over Yoshi, but I'm pretty sure that one's gonna wait for Christmas. Wasteland 2, however, will be played. Oh yes.

The only way to create a movie out of one of those atrocious "novels" was to make a two-hour fan-wank to all of them. What a great way to preserve people's nostalgia for horrible things rather than expose them to how terrible their taste was.

Wow. Are the books that bad? I've only ever seen the show and I love that because it's one of the few scary shows for kids.

No, they weren't that bad. I'm not really sure where this hate is coming from.

I'm sorry, everybody. I know we've had a lot of fun here, but I'm afraid the pillars of the internet just won't able to shoulder the incalculable weight of my hot take on The Boxcar Children when someone brings that video game adaptation into the world.

I'd start backing up your Flickr albums now. A dark time indeed.

Legend of Legacy was robbed! As a regular in the JRPG thread you had one job Chris, one job!

Yoshi's Wooly World was already on pre-order but I agree that you probably can't go wrong with Human Resource Machine (Felix also forgot to mention that it's by The Tomorrow Corporation aka the people who also did Little Inferno and the art for World of Goo) or Jackbox Party Pack 2 (sadly without a new YDJK in the pack).

If I didn't currently have my mouse cursor hovering over Amazon's buy button on Legend of Legacy, I'd be all over HRM this week. Jackbox unfortunately isn't a necessary purchase since we started playing the previous one about a month ago along with Quiplash so we're not to the point where we need the extra material yet.

Wembley wrote:

I'm not really sure where this hate is coming from.

Because Chris never has seething loathing and contempt for popular things right?

(I enjoyed the books as a kid but lost interest once the sequel-itis set in. For someone who wasn't (and still isn't) really into "proper" horror books/movies they were fun reads.)

All about 'dat Wasteland. And my birthday. But mostly Wasteland

Wembley wrote:
garion333 wrote:

I'm all over Yoshi, but I'm pretty sure that one's gonna wait for Christmas. Wasteland 2, however, will be played. Oh yes.

The only way to create a movie out of one of those atrocious "novels" was to make a two-hour fan-wank to all of them. What a great way to preserve people's nostalgia for horrible things rather than expose them to how terrible their taste was.

Wow. Are the books that bad? I've only ever seen the show and I love that because it's one of the few scary shows for kids.

No, they weren't that bad. I'm not really sure where this hate is coming from.

Yeah, that was really uncalled for. Sure, it isn't Shakespeare or Proust or Thoreau or Zola, but they were decent teen/pre-teen literature.

I almost never manage full second runs of something... But Wasteland 2's definitely worth a second go - those new additions to the game look awesome.

I've been on a bit of a Tell-Tale kick lately, so I'm looking at Minecraft Story Mode. And no mention from any of you even though you have it on the list twice?

And I've been playing Age of Decadence in Early Access for a while now; it's a pretty good old-school RPG which seems to do a good job of letting your choices influence what is going on. Hoping the official release cleans up some things and stomps a few bugs I've been hitting.

Rocky's Boots! Wow, I'd shoved that bit of history in my 4th grade locker and forgotten the combination. Also realized thanks to this thread's nudging that I've never actually read any Goosebumps books, just the parody Gooflumps ones, with such promising titles as Stay Out of the Bathroom and Eat Cheese and Barf. Enriching literature to be sure.

But I digress. No love for Minecraft Story Mode? Looked like it had some solid potential to me. Are we burned out on Telltale's tale telling?

benign1 wrote:

But I digress. No love for Minecraft Story Mode? Looked like it had some solid potential to me. Are we burned out on Telltale's tale telling?

I'm not a big fan of Telltale in general though I like that they are speaking to a market desire that most everyone else are happy to ignore.

I think it's just the concept of a Story Mode. Minecraft kind of evokes its own narrative while you play. It seems weird to overlay a canonical story on top of everyone's experiences.

My hatred for Goosebumps comes from reading one between Michael Crichton's The Lost World and Sphere and coming to the conclusion that cool kids and their bad taste in books can suck it, they're a bunch of jerks anyway.

Shoptroll has the right of it re: my hatred of popular things, especially growing up. I loathed every young adult book I read, hated most of the popular Nicktoons shows, and found Mortal Kombat and Goldeneye to be horrible "classics". I was born a pretentious little sh*t.

I don't know how to respond when you say that you know you are being pretentious and dismissive but you're fine with that. At least, that's what I am taking away from your comment. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I wouldn't describe that as pretentious, unless you actually do like those things and put up a "pretense" of having a disdain for "common" or "popular" things that you don't actually possess. I believe your hatred of those things to be genuine, and not at all pretentious.

Speaking as a cultural inconoast first minted in 1977 (when I was dismissive of Star Wars before I was even on solid food) let me state for the record that I have never read a Goosebumps book. (I was more of a Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark sort of kid)

The difference between Chris and I is that I'm so contrary that I reject the more popular contrarian practice of hating things that other people love in favor loving things that people hate.

Also Chris is right: The original Mortal Kombat was a crap fighting game that people only played because the moral panic brigade told us not to. If it hadn't been for the spinal cords and blood it would have been consigned to the same bin as Pit Fighter.

Unless I'm grossly misremembering their level if you were happily reading Chricton's stuff your reading age msut have been a good five years past the target age of the Goosebumps stuff. I can see how that would make for a poor comparison.

Sonicator wrote:

Unless I'm grossly misremembering their level if you were happily reading Chricton's stuff your reading age msut have been a good five years past the target age of the Goosebumps stuff. I can see how that would make for a poor comparison. :)

I was reading Crichton in 5th and 6th grade, yes. Also: Raptor Red was a major disappointment.

Before I respond to Wembley, I do actually want to apologize for what I wrote nonetheless. I ended up thinking about it during the rest of my work day, and just this weekend I had been venting with my brother about the lack of proper critical quality in the games industry, which includes the inability for people to truly carry themselves professionally. It's been a problem since the Atari days, really, and I can't help but wonder if that's part of the reason games crashed in America but managed to survive and be revived in Japan.

But I'm getting away from myself.

That Week Ahead post I wrote is the exact sort of example of unprofessional behavior that I criticize others of having, and it is hypocritical of me to defend it, or at least say it is okay. It's true my values of the books are rather harsh, but did they really have a place in a space intended for pointing out games worth playing? No.

We didn't reformat the Week Ahead this way so that I could use it as a brief sound board to trash something. I will be sure not to use it as such again.

Wembley wrote:

I don't know how to respond when you say that you know you are being pretentious and dismissive but you're fine with that. At least, that's what I am taking away from your comment. Please correct me if I am wrong.

It's my way of basically saying "It's my opinion, but don't take it personally". Similarly to in my post...

Speaking of terrible taste, my own horrific palate is going for...

In other words, while I have a potentially inflated sense of my own intelligence and analytical abilities in regards to games, film, television, and books, there are some times where it's not worth taking what I say seriously. Ranting about a series of books that I disliked as a kid and only grew to hate because everyone else claimed them to be "teh best evarz lololol" is one of those times it's not worth taking me seriously.

Botswana wrote:
benign1 wrote:

But I digress. No love for Minecraft Story Mode? Looked like it had some solid potential to me. Are we burned out on Telltale's tale telling?

I'm not a big fan of Telltale in general though I like that they are speaking to a market desire that most everyone else are happy to ignore.

I think it's just the concept of a Story Mode. Minecraft kind of evokes its own narrative while you play. It seems weird to overlay a canonical story on top of everyone's experiences.

Just look at the cast and tell me you aren't curious.

I mean cory Feldman for goodness sakes!

Looking forward to Planetbase. And Age of Decadence, whose development I started following in 2004-2005 (IIRC) and stopped following in 2009 because it never seemed like it would come out. And yet, here it is.

ccesarano wrote:

It's been a problem since the Atari days, really, and I can't help but wonder if that's part of the reason games crashed in America but managed to survive and be revived in Japan.

Console games crashed in America. PC (well really Apple II at that point) was fine for the most part considering the early 80's was also the start of the boom for PC companies like Sierra, Electronic Arts, Origin, Brøderbund, etc. alongside Nintendo and Sega's leading of the console rebirth.

Lack of professionalism has likely very little to do with it.

EDIT: Both North American crashes are largely attributed to market oversaturation from too many games and too many competing systems. Japan I imagine was largely isolated from this due to there not being a large demand at the time for Western games/systems. Plus their gaming culture is vastly different than ours with things like arcades persisting long past their lifespan here in North America.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

I almost never manage full second runs of something... But Wasteland 2's definitely worth a second go - those new additions to the game look awesome.

I got a copy of Wasteland 2 with my Bards Tale IV Kickstarter, but I've been waiting to play so that I can enjoy the Director's Cut. I know you praised it quite a lot last year - looking forward to it!

shoptroll wrote:

Console games crashed in America. PC (well really Apple II at that point) was fine for the most part considering the early 80's was also the start of the boom for PC companies like Sierra, Electronic Arts, Origin, Brøderbund, etc. alongside Nintendo and Sega's leading of the console rebirth.

Lack of professionalism has likely very little to do with it.

EDIT: Both North American crashes are largely attributed to market oversaturation from too many games and too many competing systems. Japan I imagine was largely isolated from this due to there not being a large demand at the time for Western games/systems. Plus their gaming culture is vastly different than ours with things like arcades persisting long past their lifespan here in North America.

Oh you and your PC games.

I'm going to have to do a bit more digging into what the atmosphere at Atari was like again, but I feel like some of the issues of things like oversaturation, and then even the nature of the different competition, could likely have been a product of young people with a lack of professional experience making big decisions without really thinking them through too thoroughly. But, it's just idle speculation based off of what I remember from when I read about it years ago.

For what it's worth, if that were the Game King's comment about Goosebumps, you'd have all just cried for Jacobin revolt and been done with it.

Wembley wrote:

I don't know how to respond when you say that you know you are being pretentious and dismissive but you're fine with that. At least, that's what I am taking away from your comment. Please correct me if I am wrong.

See? This is what I'm talking about. "Pretentious and dismissive and fine with that" was, like, Sean's whole schtick.

Now I'm wondering if I should puff Chris up more to that near-hyperbolic level or try and knock Sean down a couple pegs.

tanstaafl wrote:

I've been on a bit of a Tell-Tale kick lately, so I'm looking at Minecraft Story Mode. And no mention from any of you even though you have it on the list twice?

Honestly, last week I would have at least put it in my list. I think I got overexposed to the commercials. Over-marketing is a real wet blanket for me.

For what it's worth, I read a lot of Goosebumps. They made me feel tough, because they were "scary," and they were a great way to finish more books faster, and thus earn more ice cream at the end of the year.

Yes, we pretty much had gamified independent reading in my grade school. I ... broke the game, pretty much.

For the record, my low-teen horror reading started with Stephen King ("The Mist" was my first horror story). Seemed like a step backwards to go towards children's fiction after that.

And before that it was Fighting Fantasy gamebooks or nuthin'!

wordsmythe wrote:

For what it's worth, if that were the Game King's comment about Goosebumps, you'd have all just cried for Jacobin revolt and been done with it.

Wembley wrote:

I don't know how to respond when you say that you know you are being pretentious and dismissive but you're fine with that. At least, that's what I am taking away from your comment. Please correct me if I am wrong.

See? This is what I'm talking about. "Pretentious and dismissive and fine with that" was, like, Sean's whole schtick.

Maybe I'm missing some irony or sarcasm here (and if so, you may disregard this post), but I feel to compelled to disagree. The whole point of the Game King shtick is that Elysium has consistently been an advocate for playing what you enjoy, and being okay with spending 1k+ hours in said game. I find that quite distinct from the "pretentious and dismissive" attitude which basically consists of saying "this is crap, and people should be ashamed for having such terrible taste" (yes, I'm paraphrasing). There's a difference between saying that and saying "I don't enjoy this and this is not for me."
Believe me, the day Elysium changes his tune, I'll be the first one to roll out the guillotine (although those are hard to come by and there's not a stone still standing at Bastille plaza nowadays). But it's not a person thing, it's about the idea. The idea of respecting others' opinions and keeping an open mind when it comes to something as subjective as taste in literature or games.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, and I don't even know why I'm defending the Goosebumps books (I must've read one or two at most). But when I read Wembley's post, I can't be the only one who feels this is problematic.

wordsmythe wrote:

For what it's worth, if that were the Game King's comment about Goosebumps, you'd have all just cried for Jacobin revolt and been done with it.

Wembley wrote:

I don't know how to respond when you say that you know you are being pretentious and dismissive but you're fine with that. At least, that's what I am taking away from your comment. Please correct me if I am wrong.

See? This is what I'm talking about. "Pretentious and dismissive and fine with that" was, like, Sean's whole schtick.

Now I'm wondering if I should puff Chris up more to that near-hyperbolic level or try and knock Sean down a couple pegs.

I think the difference is that I've never gotten the feeling from Sean's writing that he actually meant those things. My gut reaction to what Chris wrote was that he was serious, and, to me, his followup comments reinforce that. I feel Eleima's comment gets to the heart of what rubbed me the wrong way about that paragraph.

It may well be that I just know Chris better than most readers. Sure, Goosebumps weren't great books, though they were very popular. They were written to be pabulum, and they succeeded in that goal. Baby food has no texture (by design), and I don't have a problem with someone dismissing it from their diet for that. I also, for what it's worth, don't have a problem if an adult wants to eat baby food—someone very close to me had to do that for a while when we were figuring out her food allergies.

On the other hand, in the years I've been editing Chris, he's consistently been about finding value in underappreciated games—games that I might feel were critically panned for good reasons. He and DT have both developed a schtick around eating or praising thing that many would barely consider food. (Remember how they both wrote about that awful Godzilla game recently?) That's what Chris means when he says "Speaking of terrible taste" as a lead-in to his own pick, which Chris himself reiterated.

I mean, if folks want us to redact and publish an apology (beyond what Chris has already written) to someone who was the highest-selling children's/YA author of all time, I guess I could consider that. Outside of TWA, I don't really like us taking swings without leaning into the punch. But, as a warning: Don't expect me to hold my tongue next time I get to take a shot at Everybody Loves Raymond, or the next time Friends comes up. They're contrived, they're intersectionally problematic, and there were far better things on TV when they were on the air. Sort of like Goosebumps books.

If that's what you're taking away from what I have said then I am doing an incredibly poor job of making myself clear. I haven't really given this discussion the time I should. I apologize for that. I also realize I haven't responded to Chris' response to me, so hopefully this addresses both. I want to reiterate that what Eleima said a few posts up gets right to the point better than I ever will be able to, but let me try to elaborate. This isn't about Goosebumps. I don't really care if people hate Goosebumps and say it was terrible. I feel like you're interpreting my comments as some call to end negative comments about things. That's not the issue. The issue is making value judgements about people based on your own opinions about things. I would think that a community like this would be more sensitive to being judged based on one facet of who they are. Saying anyone that liked a thing, whatever that thing may be, has terrible taste just because you happen to not like that thing is problematic. Following it up by saying you also have terrible taste doesn't really make dismissing people on the flimsiest pretense okay, in my opinion. That's my whole point. It wasn't my intention for this to become an argument.