Graduated Gamer Reviews Captain Novolin

 

This review is going to be an issue for me because it’s going to be a fine dance between ripping a bad game and trying not to alienate a large group of people. That group of people would be diabetics, and the reason is because I reviewed the horridly designed and tackily named Captain Novolin.

For those of you unfamiliar with this game, Captain Novolin was created by the drug company Novo Nordisk who manufactured Novolin-brand insulin. Now the premise is, on the surface, admirable on the part of this multi-billion dollar corporation: use video games to teach kids with diabetes to eat healthy, stay active, and avoid pitfalls that can lead to unsafe blood glucose levels. However, using the name of your brand of insulin in the game title sort of starts us off on the wrong foot – even 7-Up named their game “Cool Spot” after the mascot, not the product (although I guess having an insulin hormone as your mascot would be sort of weird, huh?).

Anyway, back to the purpose of this game. It was intended to be used as a way for children with diabetes to not only learn how to control it, but also teach their friends about the disease in the form of a video game. However, all these good vibes immediately go out the window as soon as you start playing this tripe.

 

The game starts out silly enough, with the mayor captured by an evil alien who has also unleashed enemies in the forms of sugary foods. Their goal is to take over the world, but worst of all is the mayor is running low on insulin and you must get to him! Let’s get this straight – a small town mayor might die and that takes slight priority over saving the Earth? Sounds legit, let’s do it.

 

However, before you even get to the action, Captain Novolin needs to get tips from some terrifying renderings of humans in a cartoon world. One is apparently some nurse from the parts of hell where they keep clowns and those people from Soundgarden’s video for “Black Hole Sun”. Seriously, she’s scarier than any of the donuts or sugary drinks you’ll face later in the game: 

 

Are we sure she’s not the alien trying to enslave all of humanity? 

Dear God those eyes are burning a hole into my very soul!

Simply terrifying. Anyway, before you go after Blubberman (the creative name for our nemesis) and save the world rescue the mayor, you have to go through some trivia about managing your diabetes. This is where the game finally integrates the educational aspects with the gameplay. Before each stage you have a grocery list of what you should eat to maintain healthy blood glucose levels. Oh, and you have to shove a needle into your veins…

I have yet to fight a single bad guy, and I have had to 1) memorize some healthy foods to eat, 2) stare down a clown-nurse form the bowels of hell, and 3) awkwardly inject an electronic needle of insulin into my body. Yea, that’ll make your diabetes less awkward to explain to your friends:

“Hey Jimmy, let’s play Super Mario Kart!”

“Sorry Tommy, I gotta take my electronic insulin and fight donuts. Wanna watch?”

[In case you’re wondering, Jimmy no longer has friends.]
 

Now granted, you never actually see the injection of insulin, but the thought of it in a game like this for children is just a bit weird. Also, how do we know that’s really insulin and not heroine or something worse in that bottle? You just can’t trust satanic nurses like you used to.

Finally after the after-school special Captain Novolin is ready to kick some ass! To be honest, our hero looks like he could maybe be a badass. Sure he’s got a perpetual dopey grin on his face, but he’s ripped and looks like he’d do well in a fight. Here are your controls: walk and jump.

No punching. No kicking. No magic, or flying, or laser vision, or injecting enemies with “insulin”. You can walk along the road, and jump. Jumping is your best weapon as most of your enemies come at you in a straight line from the side of the screen. Still, I guess I can get over the fact that our world-saving hero is just some ripped dude who has diabetes and can jump really high (hell, for all we know Mario has diabetes and he’s chubby), but what I can’t get over is how he simply dies by touching food. It’s not like the food is jumping down his throat or anything, it’s just coming into contact with him. Don’t let that milkshake touch you three times, or you’ll collapse facedown into the gutter like a drunk – just like real life.

Honestly, at this point, I was beyond caring about any redeeming qualities anymore. The graphics were sub-par at best with bland backgrounds and repetitive character design, the “action” was non-existent, and on top of all that, the game was extremely difficult. Jumping was unresponsive and, if not timed just right, would cause you to come crashing down on your enemies, and although the enemies followed patterns, you were too concerned with not eating too much bread to see that box of sweets barrel down on top of you. But honestly, with a game this bad, the two best words you can see are Game Over.

I’ll be honest – I didn’t beat Captain Novolin, but can you blame me? I’m not a child, I’m not diabetic, and I’m not used to playing terrible games. I know that the game was created to help children, and I can’t fault anyone who made this game with that in mind (except for Novo Nordi$k who we know made thi$ to pu$h their brand of in$ulin). However, I doubt this game did anything more than terrify children and make them question their parent’s love for them (“Why would you make my play this, mommy?”).

I normally don’t do a rating system, but since I wrote this for Review A Bad Game Day, I gave it a score of 2/10. I would normally award it no points (and ask God to have mercy on its soul), but somebody has to think of the children. Please, for the sake of your health, stay away from this game.

[Note: Graduated Gamer has nothing against people with diabetes, just terrible video games.]

Olde Tyme Review - Super Metroid

There are many games in this world that are considered true classics, games that are on everybody’s “must-play” list, which I have not played. Part of this is because I had to use my own hard-earned paper route money to buy video games growing up (the only exception was Christmas when I usually got two games in my stocking). Now that I’ve got a steady job that pays more than tips, my first task is to finally play games that everyone has been raving about for the last 20 years.

The first game on the list is Super Metroid, and I enjoyed it so much that I decided to create a video review. But not just any review would do for such a classic. I’m happy to bring you the first ever Graduated Gamer Olde Tyme Review! I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed making it.

 

Mona Tifa Smile: How Final Fantasy 7 Changed the Way I View Video Games

I've been a gamer since I was old enough to hold a controller. Growing up with a brother 13 years my senior who loved video games, I’d argue that it was my destiny. I worshiped my brother, and while he didn't often share, I was almost always present when he was having one of his marathon gaming sessions. No matter how much he pleaded with my parents to make me stop bugging him, I was ever the proverbial fly on the wall. I vividly remember watching him play through fantastic games like Civilization, Wing Commander, and the original Final Fantasy; and while I was too young to fully understand the nuances of what I was watching, I knew that it was for me. Those lifelong synapses were starting to strengthen. Endorphin receptors were firing. I was hooked.

When my brother left for college in the early 90’s, I inherited his plethora of video games. The ball was finally in my court, and I could game to my heart’s content. Unfortunately, I was still very young at the time, so I tended to gravitate towards games like Sonic the Hedgehog and Oregon Trail, simple games that my juvenile mind could easily grasp. I didn't dare to challenge myself with more complex games; I had nobody there to guide me down that more difficult yet more rewarding path. Unsurprisingly, the status quo started to take over. Years passed. Then Christmas of ’97 came, and the benevolent ignorance of my mother changed everything.

Believe it or not, I still remember opening my gift from her that year. By this time, I was 12 years old and had a PS1 to my name, so I was acutely aware of each of the wrapped packages under the tree that had the telltale boxy shape of a PS1 game. One in particular looked much thicker than normal. My interest was piqued at the prospect of a multi-disc game. By the time Christmas morning finally came, I was practically bouncing off the walls in anticipation. I immediately pounced to claim my prize, like some sort of predatory beast. “I went to Best Buy and asked the guy what the most popular game was,” my mom explained as I tore off the wrapping. “I hope you like it!”

Quite a few questions flooded into my head the moment I finally saw the cover. ‘Why are there holes in that huge sword?’ ‘Is that a building or some kind of massive robot?’ ‘Is that some kind of Japanese writing?’ It was immediately clear to me that this wasn't the type of game that I had grown accustomed to-- these were most definitely not the droids that I was looking for. Because of this, overwhelming all of the minutiae running through my head was one main thought: ‘Well this is disappointing.’

After the Christmas morning festivities died down, I decided that I would at least give this odd game a shot. At least then I wouldn't have to lie to appease my mother when she inevitably asked if I had tried the new game yet.  Little did I know, the way that I viewed video games as a whole was about to be turned completely and irrevocably on its ear.

Being 12 at the time, I couldn't quite put into words why that first playthrough was such a landmark event for me. Even now at 27, it’s a herculean task to articulate the feelings I had about Final Fantasy 7, especially in 1,500 words or less. Only very recently have I realized that one of the main reasons I was so blown away by FF7 is because it was my first experience with a video game as art.

This discovery stems from a conversation I recently had with a friend about what, exactly, constitutes art. The conversation was so stimulating that I felt compelled afterwards to sit down and codify my exact criteria for defining art. I came up with four criteria that must be met:

1. Art must be visually or aurally striking.

2. Art must be a physical thing that someone created. (i.e. nature cannot be art)

3. Art must evoke strong emotions.

4. These emotions have to stem from something beyond the superficial. (e.g. the work leads you to a deeper truth or it tells a story in subtext)

Visually, of course, I had never seen a game like Final Fantasy 7 before. From the jump, the art direction of Yusuke Naora was utterly breathtaking. Be it the incredible level of detail in the different environments or the perfectly rendered full-motion video segments, the visual elements of the game consistently left me in complete awe. I remember after first playing through the Junon Harbor event, I had to reload my old save and call my dad in to make him watch the FMV of Sapphire Weapon attacking the Mako Cannon. I distinctly remember thinking “I can’t believe video games have come this far.” In perfect balance with the graphics was the amazing soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu. From the delicate melody of Aerith’s theme, to the tumult and soaring crescendo of Cloud’s theme, to the campy beat of Costa del Sol, the music always managed to frame and magnify the adventure. But, while the visuals and audio may have been striking, that wasn't the reason we all grew to love the game.

The real jewel of Final Fantasy 7, the thing that truly makes it memorable – truly makes it a piece of art - is the story. This story had everything you could possibly want: self-discovery, friendship, romance, sacrifice, revenge, Moogles, psychotic villains, redemption, saving the world, and even a little bit of cross-dressing. Over the course of 40+ hours, I got to really know and care about the characters. I grew to legitimately care about their well-being. When Sephiroth plunged his Masamune through Aerith’s chest, I felt like I had been stabbed in the back as well. I was shocked: How could this video game let me grow to care about this character and then in an instant take her away from me? This had never happened to me before; I had gotten far too used to controlling expendable characters. I never really cared much what happened to Sonic or random X-Wing/TIE Fighter pilot or Earthworm Jim or Jacques Cartier. In other video games I had played, the story was always an afterthought for me – nothing more than a technicality that allowed the game to exist. I cared about the objectives and parameters of my mission, not why I was on it.

Final Fantasy 7 changed that paradigm for me. Coated in honey by the soundtrack and visuals, the story was no longer the bitter pill I had to swallow to get to the good stuff. It became the good stuff. There were elements of the characters that I could actually relate to for the first time in a video game. Of course I wasn't having materia stolen from me in my day-to-day life, but the 12 year old me could relate to the characters on some levels. Deep down, Cloud was just a guy struggling to form his identity; Tifa cared deeply about someone, but was unsure if they would ever love her back; Barrett was someone who had to learn how to funnel his desire for vengeance into something positive; Cait Sith felt crushed between what was expected of him and what he knew was right; Red XIII deeply resented his father, only to learn later that parents are motivated by sacrifice and love whether we can see it or not. As a young child just breaching into puberty, these were all very relevant concepts to my day-to-day life. To some degree, all of these concepts are still very relevant to my life today.

And that’s really what art is all about, isn't it? It’s about looking deep into what somebody else put their heart and soul into and seeing a reflection of your own life. It’s about a medium transcending into more than its base parts. Even though I didn't know it at the time, that’s what made FF7 so special to me: it taught me that, instead of just being simple and amusing diversions, video games could be so much more. They could be epic adventures that would take you not only to distant corners of alien worlds, but also to corners of your own mind that you didn't know existed. They could be a lens that allows you to focus on and learn about yourself. They could be a great forum where the different parts of your psyche could be heard. They could be art.

 

Andrew Sands is a part-time gamer from Madison, WI. When not saving digital worlds, he can be found playing sand volleyball, attending Renaissance Faires, and rolling d20s.