A very special diabetes edition of Renegade Ego.
By Video_Game_King 43 Comments
Captain Novolin
( What, that surprised you?) This blog is actually called Renegade Ego, and it isn't the first time I've done this. Wait, you're confused about the diabetes thing? I thought you'd be more confused about my blatantly obvious bait-and-switch joke, but whatever, I can understand the confusion, so let me explain: there is a genre of video games called edutainment. Aside from Oregon Trail and maybe Number Munchers, they all suck, especially when they're teaching you about diabetes. They suck even more if, like Captain Novolin, they don't teach you anything.Hell, I left the game more confused than I'd entered. It starts off with the mayor being kidnapped by aliens, which, for whatever reason, take the form of ice cream and donuts and other sweets. Rather than eat the threat away, the citizens of Wherever-ville decide to ask Captain Novolin for help. Already, I find myself asking a question: how could they fuck up what is essentially a Powerpuff Girls rip-off? Keep in mind that I haven't even said anything of Captain Novolin yet, mainly because there's not much to say about him. He's muscly and looks like the villain from Who Framed Roger Rabbit whilst riding a boat, but other than that, not much to mention. Hell, not even superpowers, since he doesn't have any superpowers. I blame this on the diabetes he constantly loves to mention; it's hard to be badass when you have to remind people supposedly less powerful than you that you might need medical help if you scarf down too many sugary treats in one day, so I guess the developers decided to focus all their attention on the diabetes part and less on the good part. Just look at the world of Wherever-ville: everybody's either a diabetes expert or crippled with type 1 diabetes (type 2 isn't included in this game, because the developers hate people with type 2 diabetes). Now I can see why my Powerpuff Plan wouldn't work: because the donut-alien-things would win. Also, they wouldn't know how the plan would work, since YouTube only has the anime version in its databanks.
The obvious one is time: each part of a level doesn't correspond to a time of day, wherein you're supposed to eat certain foods to keep up your glucose levels. However, the time of day has no bearing on the game itself, so fuck it like I fucked the boat. Ignoring my love for fucking boats and Father Time, there's that eating thing I barely mentioned before. Unlike all the other parts of the game, diabetes plays a major role. At the beginning of each level, something approximating a human tells you which foods you can eat in a level. Pay attention to him VERY carefully; fuck up his instructions, and you'll pass out on the street in a diabetic coma. I don't know what happens if you underdose on food, so I'll assume that you starve to death. Still more fun than placing a stupid limit on how much crap you can collect, especially a limit you don't know until it's far too late. Why couldn't there be some way to check your blood sugar levels? You know, like a button of some type? Eh, it doesn't matter; it's not like the game actually teaches you anything about diabetes; it just spouts facts at you without doing much with them. That's fine for a textbook, but damn it, this is a video game, and we have standards! If you're gonna make a game of any kind, you have to make it fun; otherwise, whatever you're saying will just be taken as an argument to destroy those responsible for this game. That's why I wish to find a cure for diabetes: so people stop making shitty diabetes games. Also, Failure Award for Being Less Entertaining than an Episode of King of the Hill.
Review Synopsis
- Wow, Captain Novolin is a pussy.
- Wow, this game is really easy.
- Wow, diabetes is irrelevant.
A better reason to avoid sweet foods: they will destroy your life. You'll shit in small bowls and wake children up at night in the hopes that they'll eat it. There's a reason it cuts away to the house when he screams.
Packy & Marlon
( Who the hell would've thought that there are TWO diabetes games on the SNES?) Well, I guess I'm the only one, since I actually had to create the page for this game. That means I'm the only person who's heard of this game, and trust me, the wiki community knows about some obscure- ass games; what does it say about them that somebody pretty lax about the wiki had to add what they never did? That this game isn't that good, and the only reason it deserves attention is because it focuses on diabetes? But Captain Novolin did that, too, so fuck this game? Yea, let's go with that.
As you can tell, diabetes plays a huge role in this diabetes-themed game, too, and like before, it doesn't work. Like the diabetes code I didn't mention before, Packy & Marlon asks you to enter your insulin shot plan thing before the game begins, but it doesn't have any affect on the game whatsoever, so what's the point? To teach kids about diabetes? You're not teaching them about diabetes, you're just putting it in there! If you want to teach them about diabetes, make it have some type of effect on the game; otherwise, it's just an annoying, useless gameplay feature you're thrusting in their face. STOP THRUSTING YOUR DIABETES INTO THE FACES OF THESE YOUNG CHILDREN! Or if you're gonna continue shoving your diabetes in their young faces, at least make it accurate; if I'm gonna be forced to eat a certain amount of meals per food group per level, at least match them up properly so that cheese is not a meat brick. Not only does it make them feel bad about their diabetes (this game knows more about your diabetes than you do, and it doesn't even have diabetes), but it only makes it that much more obvious that you have absolutely nothing else to offer with your game. OK, so it's not as bad Captain Novolin, since it's an actual game, but the gameplay is still kinda crap.
How, you ask? Well, for one, it's kinda misleading, at least by that screenshot from before. It looks like Super Mario World meets Pokemon meets my crap tracing ability, but if I had to compare it to any game at all, it'd be more like Michael Jackson's Moonwalker. Yea, you can already see how this isn't a good gift for your kids. In each level, you're tasked with retrieving a given diabetes item, like a logbook or insulin, and then defeating a boss IN THAT ORDER, meaning the actual item is more or less a key than important. Also, the bosses are Romancing SaGa stupid, so they're just enemies with special sprites. Wait a second, I'm spotting a recurring problem: laziness. I know it may sound a bit nitpicky, but it absolutely destroys the game, since the generic feel to levels makes them harder to navigate than the original "you can't see dick" Dragon Quest dungeons. Not exactly a good thing when your entire game revolves around finding certain objects in huge levels. It gets especially bad in the underwater levels, which I'll leave at "they would confuse the Minotaur." The only rule for any type of navigation in this game is "you find the 'key' first, then go to the boss"; if you find the "locked door" to the boss, you know that the "key" must be nearby. Other than that, good luck. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Captain Novolin is the diabetes game. How can this be? Packy & Marlon is actually a game. Granted, it's a shit game, but at least it has gameplay of some type. How can it be beat by nothing itself? You know what, Packy & Marlon? Both of you get the Mega Failure Award for Being Less Entertaining than Captain Fucking Novolin.
Review Synopsis
- Is there a single diabetes game that actually makes diabetes fun?
- Everything about this game is generic as hell, including the diabetes, somehow.
- Generic everything=hard to navigate levels.