I’m sorry, I have a one track mind when it comes to Working Designs and their Anton Arcane-like perversions of perfectly wonderful video games.
I’ve played about 45 minutes of a game called “Vanguard Bandits,” today. It is a competent, if dated, Strategy game, involving
giant robots in a fantasy type setting. Lame when compared to say, Front Mission 3, but it could have been so much more.
I will admit, I chuckled when I killed an Enemy “ATAC” and they shouted, “Calgon, take me away!” or when my character shouted an attack;“Judo CHOP!” and “Take off, you hoser, Eh.”…
Of course, I chuckled at least the first few times they said it.
After the fifth time, and after being slapped in the face with such anachronisms as a gnarled old crone pilot speaking on the same manner as Yoda, and shouting gleefully “Filled my ‘Depends’ with joy I have!” I had the suspension of disbelief that would normally cause me to adore a “Final Fantasy Tactics meets Front Mission” Strategy game, ripped from my mind and forcibly shat upon.
Do Working Designs REALLY think they’re being “cute” by ruining games this way? Apparently so. And that’s also why you’ll find their games in the 10$ bargain bin. Fair-weather gamers will play their releases for a few days, then forget about their lackluster performance; a lot like watching comedians from the 80’s. And the hardcore gamers are so disgusted by the tripe they’re being fed that they know not to go near WD games to begin with.
Don’t even get me STARTED on how the cruddy, dated opening animation was accompanied by, you guess it, a LAME-ASS song, sung by the same singer who has done “Luna” and “Every other WD singing female’s” voice since 1992.
And to top the whole distasteful excrement confection all off, The game was originally called “Detonator Gauntlet,” But WD changed the name to “Vanguard Bandits” (an equally nonsensical and stupid name) after being pressured by Midway, makers of “Gauntlet” and “Gauntlet Legends.” Now more than ever, I believe WD are not only stupid, they’re PANSIES.