I'm posting this here because all the non-subs need to see this shit:
Video Game King - The official AndrewB Review.
Video Game King is an oddity in this world of franchise and genre-based video games. It defies definition. It's something completely different from any previous releases, and as such, a very difficult game to describe with any sort of context. Suffice it to say that, in my lengthy time with Video Game King, I feel it a justified purchase for literally any type of gamer.
You play the Video Game King, beginning life as a mere resident of the kingdom of Giant Bomb. The early-goings of the game will see you completing such tasks as mass wiki editing, writing half-insane blog posts based on other video games that no one has actually played, and generally replying snarkily (in the most charming manner) to other residents of Giant Bomb. Much of your time will actually be taken up playing other games for review. Many of them are osbcure, many awful, but there are of course some shining rays of light. You'll see much of the Fire Emblem series, being the King's favorite, and such sequences are infinitely enjoyable. Worth the purchase itself. Minigames dot your adventure, consisting mostly of wall-posts and creating elaborate Persona 4 -cross- Katawa Shoujo backgrounds for your profile. Such backgrounds are endearing enough to make the experience worth it, and as such do not detract from the overall gameplay in any way.
You'll recieve upgrades along the way. Links to Youtube being key to your arsenal. It's one of the game's more amusing aspects, and certainly places it on a pedastal far above the rest. You can choose from a near-infinte assortment, although many come from Adventure Time, a Cartoon Network series I personally have yet to watch. As such - and this leads to the downside- unless you're aware of the pop-culture references, many of them may go over your head. The problem is alleviated somewhat by external links on the internet, such as Wikipedia and Urbandictionary, to help you understand them. Doing so, of course, comes at the cost of a good deal of the humor within, so use them with caution.
The graphics consist mostly of expertly-crafted Paint.Net edits. Unfortunately, sometimes the roughness of the limitations in such an image editor shine through. For a game developed by an indie studio on a limted budget, however, it's an understandable dilemma, and in that context the graphics are forgivable and actually quite well put together. Header images are high quality PNG files, while the body consist mostly of HTML formatted text using an internal editor. The aforementioned comical images and video often dot this text in both appropriate and inappropriate places.
Audio is mostly non-existent, although you will come across the occasion expertly-crafted Youtube link to a soundtrack which rounds out the overall experience. Without voice acting of any sort, however, the limited budget really shines through, and while I'm skeptical of the quality of voice acting which could be afforded by such a limited budget, it would certainly be nice for the sometimes lengthy walls of text to be accompanied by voice samples of any sort in an era of other fully-voiced projects.
Multiplayer consists of starting out as a flegdling site user, and it's up to you to decide which path to take. You can reply snarkily to other comments, continue the tired meme of Brad escaping from the Kingdom, or even contribute to the wiki yourself. It's questionable if the goal of exceeding The King's post count is ever actually achievable, although that's something that remains to be seen until such a time that the game is released to the ravenous, general masses. Unfortunately, due to the complete redesign of the site this time around (warning: Kat Smith's glorious cartoon style is rare in this version), it's impossible to obtain achievements, thus doing so would have no other worldly benefit in the first place. Co-op DLC is planned, but as of writing has not been released.
Make no mistake: Video Game King is an expertly-crafted game, despite some of the aforementioned shortcomings. It can last you anywhere from minutes to 100+ years, depending upon your level of commitment. At any price, it's a bargain. As a free-to-play entry without any of the added paid hooks beyond a standard Giant Bomb subscription, however, it's a no-brainer. I've been playing for about 4 years now, and I can honestly say there's no sign of stopping, which is why a recommendation of Video Game King comes so highly.
Truly a thing of glory. (There were pictures, but they were not glorious enough to exist.)
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