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Ribbit King - Perfecting The Art Of Frog Golf?
Thanks to The Next Level for its hands-on preview of Bandai's PlayStation 2/GameCube title Ribbit King, a unique new game in which "you play frog golf, or 'frolf' for short. You put a frog on a catapult and smack it around a course littered with traps and point bonuses, and the person with the highest score at the end wins." The previewer notes that "even by my standards, this is an oddball", before concluding: "Ribbit King is due out in June from Bandai, and should retail for $20 on both PS2 and GameCube. Though the demo had a few issues here and there, I can definitely say that for sheer lunacy it looks to be a must-have game."
I note that you "collect items and points to improve your frolling skills". This sounds like dungeons and dragons.......to your left there is a princess, on the green there is a key...... I get the impression they have taken a bit of everything from all sorts of games and rolled them into a great big hash.
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
I can see myself spending ages playing this game, much as I did with Gitaroo Man, which I've sunk close to 100 hours into over the years.
The price is also right, perhaps because less mainstream games usually go on nothing but gameplay, which can bring overall development costs down (and the graphics on this aren't fantastic, but who cares if you're having fun?).
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
Summer of George!
This game is rated WTF!?
Games like this prove that gaming companies are up for the challenge of selling a game that is totally out of left field and/or seem like they were made on an acid binge. It takes guts to sell this kind of game, and I admire them for taking the chance.
Attention game designers: Please keep taking chances on wierd stuff like this! I'm usually a bigger fan of the non-mainstream gems than the genre-cliched "big hits". Tempest (arcade) Solar JetMan (NES) Worms Armageddon (PS1) are some of my all-time favorites. While not super-obscure games, I think these titles were certainly under the radar for many people.
The current state of the game industry reminds me of automakers in the 80's: too scared to take any chances. Dodge came out with that (at the time) really wierd hood design. Then they started making *crazy* cars like the Plymouth Prowler, PT Cruiser, and the like. People like innovation and new things!
The interactive entertainment industry seems to have settled into a me-too hit genre chaser. I understand the risk/benefit economic views of running a business. I know publishers and game companies exist to make money. But I hope the gaming consumers will put their money where their mouth is by supporting (buying) odd-ball titles if they deserve it.
I suspect the real bottleneck (for the console market) lies in the licensing and approval channels of the Sony's and Microsoft's of the world. Without their blessing, your game don't get published. I understand why the console manufacturers want to control content so tightly, but won't it be interesting when, one day, gaming consoles mature to a similar point as VCRs and DVD players? Imagine if Sony (or Apex, or whoever made your player) controlled ALL of the content you could view. That would stink. Perhaps one day, the "gaming console" will become as generic as a player and ANYone could publish games for it.
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.