Sunday, July 08, 2007

Most bizarre arcade game

While at my sister's this weekend, I played what I think is the most bizarre video arcade game ever. It's called Ganbare Ginkun and it is a Japanese arcade game from 1995. Here's a link to some screenshots from it. It's a game where two players compete in various "mini-games" - fairly simple games that last about 30 seconds or so. The whole thing is in Japanese, so part of the fun was trying to deduce from kanji and acompanying diagrams what the instructions were for each minigame. There were at least a dozen or so different mini-games and they involved such tasks as trying to land your head back on your body after it was shot up into the sky, trying to be the first to fire a cannon at your opponent when the referee yells "Go!" but not when he yells other things like "Cool!" or "Boom!", trying to eat the correct sushi as various plates whiz by on a conveyer belt, and most bizarre of all, trying to put out a fire by peeing on it. Yes, you read that right - by peeing on the fire. The game uses a very simple "hand-drawn" line art for the graphics, so all the people are stick figures, adding to the silliness.

Here's a screenshot showing the end of a game in which the player did not land their head properly back on their body. As a result, some shaggy haired person ran out onto the field of play and kicked the players head away as a punishment! It's total silliness!