Monday, June 12, 2017

Bubsy is Back and Pigs Fly

We had some pretty nice weather last week. I was able to go outside and take a long look into the sky as I let out a peaceful sigh. But as I stared skyward, I saw something flying. It wasn't a bird. It wasn't a plane and it certainly wasn't Superman. It was a pig. As I live and breath, I saw a pig flying, defying the laws of gravity. Flying pigs mean one of three things. Game publishers have stopped with micro transactions. Those are still unfortunately a thing, so that wasn't the reason I saw airborne pork. Electronic Arts is still an awful company. So that can only mean one thing: Bubsy is making a comeback.



Be scared.

For those of you not in the know, Bubsy was one of the many platformers that came out in the wake of Sonic the Hedgehog's runaway success in the early 1990s. It was a time where "characters with attitude" were as plentiful as blades of grass. Unfortunately many of these pretenders were just that. Companies that wished to capture the same success of SEGA's Sonic only looked at what was on the surface (the 'tude) and made that the primary focus of their games. Tight level design? Good music? Pfff, who needs that crap when our character has so much edge to him? Bubsy had a few games but by the mid '90s, he was just a bad memory. You could do a lot worse than play a Bubsy title, but you could also do a lot better.

The question screaming in my mind (along with countless others, I'm sure) when news reached me of Bubsy's return was/is "WHY?!" Bubsy coming back is the kind thing that makes you stop and realize just how cruel and unfair life truly is. We can't get a new F-ZERO, Klonoa, NiGHTS or TimeSplitters, but freaking Bubsy, an obnoxious, talking bobcat, actually got the Life spell cast on him?! All those other games I just mentioned, people actually want to see those franchises return. Bubsy? No one wanted this cat to come back. Let's just say the multiverse does exist and on each Earth, something is different. The one thing that is constant on every Earth is that no one is clamoring for the return of Bubsy.

At the risk of being optimistic, the game could be better than his entries from 20 years ago.. I mean, his walking speed seems to be normal, so that's already a plus. Maybe there won't be an abundance of cheap deaths. Or blind jumps. You know, Bubsy had a number of one liners back in the day, but the one everybody remembers is "What could possibly go wrong?"


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