The Dystopic World of Videogames Meets the Positive Push of Brand Marketing: M&M’s: Shell-Shocked

As a videogame historian/fancier of outdated and redundant software, it’s great to play a licensed game. Maybe it can’t quite be called a “pleasure”, but it’s easier to pick apart the  bones of a videogame rather then to dissect its bloated corpse that arrived dead on arrival at gamer’s doors.

M&M’s: Shell Shocked (2001) was a Playstation One game that was ostensibly in all ways a commercial that gamers can enjoy for themselves once by paying for it with their own money. As with many examples of its kind, the licensed part is the best part of the game as everything else is slapped together in a pleasing manner to shareholders and accountants, but not to anyone on the receiving end of this hot chocolate enema.

As there have been several M&M games over the past decade, it appears there must be some demand for this product. And yet, the term “fan of the genre” doesn’t really fit here. M&M has a core product to push before promoting any incidental merchandise. This game is nothing more than sharing brand awareness among a younger generation of Playstation players who don’t have better taste in games. And ironically, for a commercial, M&M’s: Shell Shocked doesn’t promote the consumption of its products like a commercial should.

The gameplay of M&M’s: Shell Shocked follows videogame logic that refutes marketing logic. Crates carrying the collectible players need to obtain are strewn all over the place, and in the driving sections of the game, this means all over the road. Despite the hazard to other drivers who can’t drive safely anyways, no one pays attention to these delicious crates free for the taking. Are M&M’s not delicious in the M&M universe where anthropomorphic candies advocate the eating of themselves and their peers?

Labor conditions at the M&M factory aren’t any better. Once Yellow decided to go on vacation with Red, the M&M Minis took control over the factory in the resulting dereliction of duty. The result is a perilous work environment that isn’t safe for its workers and the production of delicious M&M candy products.

Videogames need a dystopic premise on which to base the game on, but product marketing requires a positive message to encourage consumption. In combining the two together in one product, no one considers the resulting mess because “videogames are just toys for children”, just the low-rung on the ladder that M&M’s: Shell Shocked wants to be.

M&M’s: Shell Shocked is a rip-off of Crash Bandicoot, right down to the spin attack that is well-loved by underpaid animators. And yet, if we were to employ good writing for this game that would make it both acceptable to videogame logic and corporate interests, we would see that you’re ripping off the wrong game.

There already is a game about eating little dots that could be construed as M&M’s: Pac-Man. An M&M tie-in would be perfect with such a premise: Oh noes! Professor M&M has accidentally created a potion that has caused production of M&M’s to expand exponentially! With the world overrun by deliciousness, it’s up to you to keep the streets clear so that emergency vehicles can still operate unhindered. But watch out, evil supervillain Diet Beastlies is hot on your tail, and catching up! (It writes itself)

If they can’t get the rights to the voracious, eyeless mouth, then they can always go the way of the many Pac-Man clones we’ve seen over the years: KC Munchkin, Jawbreaker, uh, Ms. Pac-Man. Gamers should be reminded of how this product is a reward, and need to be consumed rather than represented by the videogame logic of crates that need to be smashed.

In the end, it’s probably just for the best that this correlation hasn’t been discovered, and that licensed videogames continue to perform poorly. Woe is the videogame industry when these games become the best examples of videogame art.

 

How far I got in 20 minutes: the second factory level, but then I got discouraged that I’m just playing a commercial that is a stupid game, and stopped

The good: You don’t have to watch some stupid TV show and wait for the commercials to enjoy the bickering of M&M’s iconic mascots.

The bad: For some reason, a hot chocolate puddle can be fatal to an M&M character, which is like saying a bowl of blood soup is fatal to humans. And, aren’t there any other shell puns available?

Will I play this game once the year is over: No. Neither this M, nor the other M.

Days so far in the Year of the Play-a-DayStation: 49

Nothing is Above the Law—Except Copyright Infringement: Vigilante 8

At least Ms Pac-Man distinguished itself from the original with new mazes, a chick ghost, and a protagonist with an eye and a bow.

Some things are just way better when paired up with its complementary soul mate: macaroni and cheese, tightly-stretched white T-shirts and cold water, alcohol and regret. And then there’s the combination that deserves a game release every year on every video game platform for the rest of time: guns and cars.

Vehicular combat with ranged firearms and explosives isn’t the beginning of a theme, but the end of a discussion in which speed and explosions are your talking points. I suppose there’s always the problem of trying to come up with new premises to explain why you’d need to strap guns to a car and then drive it really fast, but then, you don’t need to be subtle in this particular situation.

Vigilante 8 comes from a long pedigree of vehicular combat games, and none more so than Twisted Metal, a game that had debuted three years before Vigilante 8 and by this point in time had already moved on to its second sequel*. However, the legacy that will forever define Vigilante 8 is that it’s the same game as Twisted Metal.

Games sharing the same genre are bound to share similarities, and even if they don’t distinguish themselves clearly enough, there should be something new brought to the table to make this new release relevant in some game play or context.

Sadly, since they’re the same game in terms of design, gameplay and controls, it comes down to the superficial shell that distinguishes Vigilante 8, and that shell is the 70’s.

Finally, the video game adaptation of “The Sweet Hereafter” we’ve been waiting for.

The 70’s had some great cars to use in this game, and it had some good music that could help provide a mood. However, the decision to go full 70’s never comes off as anything but some marketing gimmick.

Players need more. We want stylistic choices that make a game more fun to play, not to make it easier to sell. If you’re going to pick an era, then pick one that facilitates crazy fun. We want a car combat game styled during the 50’s so we get to race hot rods while hurling Molotov cocktails at our opponents (the way Grease should have ended, really). We want a car combat game styled during the 20’s so we get to race Model T-Ford with Tommy guns strapped to them.

Any choice made towards the development of a video game—whether it makes the game crazier, weirder, or less acceptable to the public—should be for the only reason of making the game more enjoyable for the player, and that means more fun. That might seem very selfish of me as a gamer, and that also begs the question of what “fun” should be, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that gamers are sometimes treated as stupid consumers who are liable to buy anything just because of a glossy exterior.

I still want a 70’s car combat game, except this time it’s a closed-track racing game that pits pink Cadillacs driven by the pimps facing off against the air-brushed vans of the rockers. Although a full armament would eventually be unlocked, a main part of the game would be switchblade duels contested upon the hoods of the racing cars.

With that much funk and rock, it’d be another perfect match. Not to fit my musical tastes, mind you, but to accompany the sight of explosions, therefore making for a better game experience.

 *Twisted Metal III, which judging by its name had also ditched Arabic numerals for Roman

 

How far I got in half an hour: I managed to finish the storyline for the FBI agent

The good: it’s just like Twisted Metal

The bad: it’s just like Twisted Metal

Would I play this game again once this year is over: I would, but there are four Twisted Metal games and a spin-off on this platform

Days so far in the Year of the Play-a-DayStation: 12

Yippee-ki-yay, and a Good Day to You, Sir: Die Hard Trilogy

If you don’t play this game, the terrorists win.

The best thing about Die Hard (1988) is that it’s the best action film ever made. On the other hand, the worst thing about it is that because a better action film hasn’t been made ever since, we’re still stuck talking about it almost thirty years later.

So take it with a pinch of reality: any hot co-ed you ever manage to date will not have been alive when it came out.

With Die Hard being so old and yet so entrenched in our hearts, the nostalgia we feel for it is undeniable. That’s exactly why you should take a break from viewing this Christmas classic one more time in order to indulge your nostalgia with its licensed video game counterpart, Die Hard Trilogy.

The first noticeable thing between these two is that any similarities are superficial at best. The Die Hard films feature a post-modern action hero pitted against an antagonist that views him the same way the audience does, whereas the video game uses the same ten minutes of film as the basis for hours of gameplay.

And let’s not mince words: since it’s Die Hard, its an impressive ten minutes of film, and being that Die Hard Trilogy is a mash-up of three movies with three different genres (third-person shooter, on-rails shooter, and arcade racer), it’s more badassery than the 90s should have allowed. (See, it was X-treme was had no limits back then.)

So that’s where I left my keys–in my inventory!

(In video game terms, this is like what would happen if someone made a double-barreled shotgun with three barrels.)

The video game spin-off is a mere shadow of the films. Die Hard Trilogy goes so far as to embrace the “cowboy mentality” that gets ridiculed from within the first film by sending in endless waves of virtual cannon fodder as reputable video game content. Maybe it’s a little on the nose, but the terrorists even call you “cowboy”.

It’s ridiculous. And, since our nostalgia is as strong as our familiarity with the Die Hard films, this skewed perspective a great way to enjoy the films again.

This nostalgia trip is great because it challenges you to remember how the original version went. For instance, John McClean lacks the tail end of his trademark phrase that starts with “Yipee-ki-yay”, but he makes up for it by apologizing whenever he shoots an innocent bystander by mistake.

Die Hard Trilogy is mostly an ugly mess to look at, but represents the way licensed video games made from feature films should be made: by being as unfaithful to the source material in order to make a game as fun as it can be using the resources available to us of sheer ludicrousness.

Maybe you can’t blame Bruce Willis for phoning in performances at this point, but I hope there’s another installment of the franchise just so they can make another Die Hard Trilogy *.

Choosing your initials is to choose from hostages identified by a letter of the alphabet. Sucks to be you, Q.

* This doesn’t include the video game sequel, Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas

 

How far I got in an hour: the beginning of all three genres/films, lots of deaths

Would I play this again once this year is up: Yipee-ki-yay, sir

Numbers of days so far in the Year of the Play-a-DayStation: 3