Crazy Mouse.

Dear, oh dear.

This morning, as I do every Wednesday, I downloaded the latest XBox Live Arcade demos. Today we got Age of Booty from Capcom, and Crazy Mouse from .... you know, I didn't actually look? Anyway, whoever it is, they do NOT deserve to have their name mentioned online. Someone might accidentally buy this pile of shite as a result, and I in no way, shape, or form wish to be responsible for any additional sales of this abomination.

How bad can it be? I'll tell you.

Take Bomberman as your starting point. Isolate everything that makes it fun, and then cripple all those features. So, replace your Bomber with a mouse. Have him walk on jelly. And make him completely unresponsive to your controller. Got all that? I hope not, I sincerely hope not. Oh yeah, and don't actually have bombs in the game. So, instead of the crazed glory that is a fully-fledged Bomberman war, you have a slow-paced maze combat game, only without any actual strategic combat.

I suppose I should have been suspicious when I saw the price. Now, retro games are generally 400 points, unless of course people want to play them, in which case they are 800 points. New titles go for 800, unless of course there is an internet buzz about them, in which case they go to 1200. Crazy Mouse is brand new IP at 400.

Uh oh.

Here's the thing. Even at 100 MS points I would feel ripped off had I bought this game. Honestly, there is no way something so banal should be released. Not when there are hundreds of independent games out there that are vastly superior.

Recently, there were some demos of XNA community games. Most were ok, one was outstanding. The Dishwasher : Dead Samurai was basically a 2D Devil May Cry, and I would have had no qualms about spending 1200 MS points on it the very day I played it. Why is that not available yet? Whereas, what we do have available instead is a complete horse turd.

Of course, Live Arcade games all come with demos, so nobody can ever say they had no idea what they were buying was so poor. I have only played the demo of Crazy Mouse, so in fairness I am not basing this 'review' on the full title. However, I have been scarred enough by the three levels I did play to know full well that nobody should be playing something like this.

It frustrates me, because I could make (and already HAVE made) a better game. And yet, I can't get my game onto Live Arcade because I am not a known software house. There must be thousands of smaller developers out there just praying for the opportunity to put their games onto XBox Marketplace. MS seem to have a very bizarre system of choosing what makes it. Sure, their concerns about flooding the market with poor quality sound noble, but then they go and allow something so pitiful on to the platform. One has to wonder why...

In short, do not, repeat DO FUCKING NOT buy Crazy Mouse. EVER. Under no circumstances should something like this be allowed to flourish. This back-scratching is the exact kind of thing that is killing the industry. Instead of opening up the market to all, and letting the quality rise, they slam doors in the faces of the little guys.

The game was so poor that I switched off my 360 in disgust, without even getting to try Age of Booty! Since that is a Capcom game, this is almost an unheard of situation.

Still, some good will come out of this. Because now I have an even greater determination to get my own product out there!