Game Informer talks smack!

The video game world has a few games that are held above all others as paragons of brillian design and compelling gameplay. Even years after their release, these titles continue to be praised by fans and the press alike as timeless classics. So, why do all these game ssuck so much? Really, is it too much to ask that the greatest examples of our artform not be hampered with incomprehensible stories, sloppy gameplay, and god-awful graphics? Read on to find out why your favorite game just arent very good. Oh, and just to make sure weve made absolutely everyone mad, heres a list of other things that suck: Star Wars, anime, Arrested Development, puppy dogs, gummi bears, Lord of the Rings, ninjas, comic books, D & D, Kevin Smith movies, and pizza. Yuck!

Video games have long helped us escape the drudgery of our boring existence by allowing us to enter amazing worlds of fantasy. For example, what child doesnt dream of someday stepping into the shoes of... an overweight plumber with a gay cop mustache! for crap's sake, we at least expect our gaming avatars to have more exciting jobs than we do in real life. Yep, Mario sure is a great character, and so is Luigi, who is totally distinguishable from Mario because he wears different colored clothes. The save the princess storyline is trite, and even worse because you spend most of your time saving some weird guy named Toad instead. The levels are extremely simplistic and so is the gameplay, which largely revolves around bonking your head on bricks. Well say one thing for this game, at list its short; if you're good and you know your warp pipes, you can cruise thorugh it in under an hour. And did those underwater levels really suck that much when we were kids/ Answer: yes, they did; we just didnt know any better. So, yea, we respect the hell out of Super Mario Bros., as long as we dont actually have to play the damned thing.

Final Fantasy 7 is not your high school sweetheart. Just because it was the first one to break your heart doesnt mean that better games wont come along. In fact, FF VII's major lasting contribution to gaming (besides making nerds cry) is the prettiest male villain in history. Seriously, youd think the FF gang was dressed entirely in clothes left over from Duran Durans 1984 world tour. And what is Cloud doing while the fashionable yet feminine Sephiroth is destorying the world? Decorating weapons with jewelry, talking to a stuffed animal, and making birds do it. HEy, you can trush heroism... especially when your most powerful magic attacks clock in at a full minute. Its a sad day when watching a metallic space-dragon incinerate an entire hemisphere is just boring. Oh, and "One winged angel" is a Carmina Burana rip off. Deal with it.

Metal Gear Solid proves that to be considered a classic, all you need is a plot so convoluted that people are embarressed to dmit they don't understand it. Recessive genes? Ear pulling? Cyborg Ninjas? Throw it all in. The more jumbled the story, the harder it is to realize that you just snuick by a guard while wearing a cardboard box. It's a good thing the hobos down by the docks arent involved in nuclear politics; they've got more cardboard boxes than you can count. And if that doesn't sell it, the character names taken from an erectile dysfunction informational pamphlet will seal the deal. How does Solid Snake firmly defeat his flaccid counterpart? With the seemingly boundless military aresenal in his patns. Hey, Snake! Is that a nikita missle launcher in your pocket or are you just happy to see us? The only thing that could make thi sgame worse is a hero whose haircut make him look like the weird dude in your high school in the megadeth jean jacket who always hung out at the convenience store... oops!

Halo completely revolutionized the first person shooter genre. Or, thats what you might think if youd had your head shoved up your butt for the past 10 years and hadnt touched a PC game since the original doom. Heres yet another game that proves that greatness is more a matter of opinion. Sure compared to blodwake or any other of microsofts dreadful early xbox entries, this was a masterpiece, but the fact remains that haol is perhaps the most overrated game of all time. Hey do you like those levels? Good because your going to hgave to go back to them all again because Bungie couldnt manage to actually make a complete game. Halo also earns our ire for introducing the needler, the lamest and most useless weapon since the spitwad. On the plus side, halos whicles are a great way to experience what drunk driving feels like without risking your life on the freeway. Still not convinced? Lets not fail to mention master chief, a facelss game hero so free of charisma that he makes Vice President Dick Cheney seem like David Lee Roth by comparison, or the story, which is insipid scifi boilerplay not fit for the script to an episode of Cleopatra 2525.

Ah yes, the game that changed the world! Brilliant, mind blowing, visionary, and kind of crappy when you come right down to it. GTA 3 Proves that if you cant do one thing right, just do a whole bunch of stuff poorly. Combining mediocre racing, mediocre action, and a load of banal gangster movie cliches that comone probably scraped off the bottom of Martin Scorcese's italian loafers, GTA 3 offers a heaping helping of lukewarm gameplay to meathead jocks the world over. It's like the old country buffet of video games; you'll definitely get your fill, but the bad aftertaste left by the shoddy mechanics leave you with little more than regreats and a gut ache when you're done. Lets not even get into the tedious objectives - its not for nothing that this game resulted in the coining of the term "pizza delivery mission." Sadly, a lot of the 80 hours you spend in Liberty City arent much more exciting than working the night shift at Dominoes, but without the tips. In its defense, it does have a lot of swearing, which seem to be enough for the millions of unemployted 19 year olds in pit stained Eminem shirts that make up this game's target audience.