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PLATFORM: Nintendo DS
MSRP: $39.99
ESRB RATING: E
PUBLISHER: Majesco
DEVELOPER: Gameinvest
THE PITCH
Let’s make toys suck.
THE PLAY
I first discovered simulated games via Sim City for the Super Nintendo. I was born a console gamer and I plan on dying as such. The PC Gamers have tried to woo me with promises of LAN parties and intellectual games. That’s how I became introduced to the Tycoon series of games. Toy Shop has many similarities to those games, but done on the cheap.
Toy Shop offers up the exciting story of Mel and Mark. I’m led to believe that they killed their grandfather for some petty cash. But, they ended up with a toy shop. It’s a dick move, but so are most things.
The game is a basic setup of product setup, construction and sell. That’s about it. You build toys, as they become available and you find areas of your store to sell them. You have to plot out where to place the items to get them to sell better. It’s a nice primer for many dumb kids, as they begin their descent into retail hell.
Feel the excitement of the Wood Train!
THE PRESENTATION
The game looks and sounds like a 16-bit turd. Some might wonder what an 8-bit turd looks like, so I grabbed some screenshots. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen a game that looks like it was built, tested and shipped within six weeks. They are bugs throughout the game, as entering and exiting areas seem to hang like a rusty nail. I demand something more out of my gaming.
If you do manage to get into the later levels, there’s really no improvement. It’s an endless series of buy and sell that you become desensitized to the lives of those around you. I’ve heard of this happening to people before. They call it the thousand yard gaming stare. I heard that kid at Virginia Tech had it. But, he also sent pictures of him in some Oldboy poses to NBC News.
The DS has two screens to help handle all of the shittiness of this game.
THE REPLAY
There’s no reason to ever pick this game up again. Hell, if you’re unlucky enough to get it as a rental, kick it to the curb. The video gaming industry takes a lot of shit from the other entertainment fields and this turd is the reason. There’s no reason to respect or honor an industry that makes you build wood trains for entertainment.
The more I played this game, I came to realize that there’s something fucked up about using a person’s free-time to force them into a Capitalist exorcise. It’s almost like a financial brainwashing effort done through one of the Nikkei’s top companies to help mentally rewrite and reset the American youth to their whim. But, that would require a lot of things to happen that only exist in my head. Hell, my paranoid fantasies of what lead to the creation of Toy Shop is more entertaining than the game. That’s a sure sign that someone fucked up.
THE VERDICT
This game is reason enough that Satan is real and that he wants to take a poo on my chest. I don’t enjoy bashing games, it’s just that I don’t want to make you go astray. Play shit that matters and help to bury these turds. You’ll be able to respect yourself in the morning and you’ll help to make gaming better. In a way, you’d be a hero.