LOLHORRIBLEDEVELOPERS WHOHAPPENTOBEXTIANS WHOENDUPSCREWINGUPBOTH

January 17, 2008 1:24 PM

What if the Devil tricked a well-meaning computer developer into making a horrendous animal racing game?(cringeworthy YouTube link) Now we know! Yes, Cougar Interactive has a product for you. Zoo Race! The biblical flood is over, and with hardly any people around, what's Noah, God, and the animals gonna do? Why, RACE of course! The game features compelling voice work, top flight graphics, and of course... animals straddling on rockets. And to top it all off, God is the announcer! It was the best 2007 had to offer, and it's still available... so, like their web site says.. Buy the FUN game that the big game companies would not ever make. (as found at Kotaku)

Please understand, this has nothing to do with Christianity or anything. More the UNHOLY combination that was the result. Oh, did you know it was a sequel?

posted by tittergrrl (58 comments total)

Pigs....

IN TOP HATS!
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 1:30 PM on January 17, 2008

Oh my poor dear Blasphemy...whatever happened to you dude? You used to be all about ecclesiastic schisms, rogue monks, heretical prophets, the whole nine yards! Now you're reduced to doing video games?
posted by aramaic at 1:30 PM on January 17, 2008

I would love to play, but there's now way my video card can handle all those polygons.
posted by itchylick at 1:34 PM on January 17, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

BIBLICAL FAIL.
posted by Cyrano at 1:34 PM on January 17, 2008 [5 favorites has favorites]

NO way (It's been a long day).
posted by itchylick at 1:34 PM on January 17, 2008

God sounds like my college roommate after too many quaaludes.
posted by CaptApollo at 1:36 PM on January 17, 2008

"As head Librarian, I suggest that you read informative books, about history. Like... CREATURE RACING, and CUTE PIGS."
posted by verb at 1:37 PM on January 17, 2008 [5 favorites has favorites]

GUYS! I think someone put acid in my LSD!
posted by WinnipegDragon at 1:37 PM on January 17, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

God really does suck as a race announcer. At last we find the limits of His powers.

And Ruben? Stop reading your crazy animal books. They're causing you to hurry behind desks and, if I understood the sound effect correctly, quickly urinate.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:38 PM on January 17, 2008

The shadows on that 'librarian's head make her look like a dude.
posted by delmoi at 1:39 PM on January 17, 2008

When's it coming to the wii?
posted by dobbs at 1:42 PM on January 17, 2008

Please tell me that nobody got paid to make this, that their only reward is in the hereafter.
posted by uncleozzy at 1:43 PM on January 17, 2008

What? the Fuck?
posted by notsnot at 1:44 PM on January 17, 2008

Great post! Hallelujah!
posted by BeerFilter at 1:45 PM on January 17, 2008

I can't imagine it's much worse than TuxRacer.
posted by box at 1:46 PM on January 17, 2008

Incidentally, creature racing was forbidden in the original commandments, but was loss after Moses broke 'em.
posted by Atreides at 1:47 PM on January 17, 2008

Ha... Remind me of a video I saw the other night. Joe Rogan's take on Noahs Ark (nsfw language).
posted by Mr_Zero at 1:51 PM on January 17, 2008

"Oh Rueben, you read too many books." What the hell kind of librarian says that?!

BTW, is that a flush toilet behind the librarian's desk? Maybe a flush baptismal?
posted by maryh at 1:52 PM on January 17, 2008

"Rue"ben's hand does an Exorcist-style 360 at the wrist around the 55 second mark... Had the graphics been better, that might've freaked me out.
posted by CKmtl at 1:58 PM on January 17, 2008

I think Viva Pinata Party Animals has some 'splaining to do.
posted by hanoixan at 1:58 PM on January 17, 2008

Librarians aren't horses. They're wolves! And they should have used this tiger.
posted by misha at 2:00 PM on January 17, 2008

I think I lost it when Cain the Cougar paused, while swimming under the blood-red-sky, and took a quick gander at the Velociraptor traipsing by on the path to the left. As in, "well, you don't see that every day.
posted by The Giant Squid at 2:10 PM on January 17, 2008

Come on, no references to Gamespot's Alex Navarro reviews Big Rigs?
posted by Plutor at 2:11 PM on January 17, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

oh god, that noah video for Noah's Adventures... Apparently they animated the mouths first for dialogue, and then tried to speak to match the mouth movements.

"Whyyyy... Doooo they....... Fffffiiiii... ight constantlyyyyyyy."
posted by shmegegge at 2:16 PM on January 17, 2008

dude, you managed to fuck up my google reader. Try the spacebar.
posted by desjardins at 2:19 PM on January 17, 2008

That's what Second Life would look like if there were perverts.
posted by Free word order! at 2:22 PM on January 17, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

It has been observed, but bears repeating, that someone appears to have taken a perfectly good top hat and put a pig in it.
posted by Wolfdog at 2:23 PM on January 17, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Okay, you fucks, stop laughing. When my Grampa Reuben had his stroke, all he had going for him to fill his days was his animal books and the public library. Every day, he would shuffle down to the library to read his books and talk to people. And race. It kept him alive, you heartless bastards, it kept him happy. So what if the head librarian had to chase him around the library? So what if, as his dementia progressed, he started referring to other people as animals? I mean, there are worse things in the world then a harmless old man approaching you, calling you a "nice horsey," and giving you a sugar cube from his coat pocket!

But NO! It's intolerant JERKS like you and the Mom that complained when Grampa Rueben started petting her daughter and asked her if the soft little bunny would like to find a carrot in his pocket. Thanks to you lot, my poor confused Grampa got banned from the library and the books and the stacks racing he loved so much. It broke his heart, bastards.

So now he just sits at home all day in front of the old computer I gave him a few years ago. He works and works on his special "project" with only his Day Nurse Hannah to keep him company. When I was last down in Florida, I paid him a visit and he's a shadow - A SHADOW! - of his former self. To see a fine man fall from the lofty hights of being a computer science professor down to... to that just breaks my heart.

So your laughter is not helpful.

Dicks.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 2:27 PM on January 17, 2008 [13 favorites has favorites]

All day long I work in the cold and wet Tennessee weather hanging sheetrock, hands cracking from the winter bite, back breaking from the endless workload, the constant sound of hammers ringing , and power tools screaming their guts out; I come home crack open a beer and this is the first link I click on Mefi. I need a vacation.
posted by nola at 2:27 PM on January 17, 2008

In defense of this game, I always thought it would be awesome to make a racing game using animals.

Except it would be set in New York, and you could choose one of a number of animals like lions, horses, elephants, etc. And then use a really good engine and stomp through the streets of NYC, crushing taxi cabs under your massive elephant hooves.

Lousy LOLATHEIST acting optional.
posted by Deathalicious at 2:29 PM on January 17, 2008

After laughing and teasing her friend Rueben

Hmm... interested...

about believing in the Noah's Ark story

... less interested...

Hannah the librarian has a dream about it

... MUCH more interested...

In her dream, her friends are re-shaped into animals and she herself changes into a racehorse

AHHH!! FURRIES!!! DO NOT WANT!!!!!
posted by mkultra at 2:32 PM on January 17, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

nola wrote: All day long I work in the cold and wet Tennessee weather hanging sheetrock, hands cracking from the winter bite, back breaking from the endless workload, the constant sound of hammers ringing , and power tools screaming their guts out

That must be some ark.
posted by anazgnos at 2:33 PM on January 17, 2008

Robocop: Your story fails to explain why the pig is wearing a top hat. Other than that, I love you.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 2:34 PM on January 17, 2008

Who doesn't like wearing a top hat? Amirite?
posted by Plutor at 2:45 PM on January 17, 2008

There's too much to make fun of! From the animals riding the rockets (is Major "King" Kong a secret character? Yahoo!) to the amazingly stilted opening to the lack of screaming when the Hootmans get turned into animals....

And yet, it still looks about a hundred times more interesting than Generic First-Person Shooter V. At least it's different!
posted by JHarris at 2:50 PM on January 17, 2008

That must be some ark.

Well yeah, we got a whole mess of animals so you need a really big boat for that.
posted by nola at 2:51 PM on January 17, 2008

That's what Second Life would look like if there were perverts.

If?
posted by CKmtl at 2:56 PM on January 17, 2008

The first minute or so (couldn't get any further, sorry,) wouldn't be out of place in a porno. All that wooden dialogue and stiff acting, you know?
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 3:06 PM on January 17, 2008

Robocop: Your story fails to explain why the pig is wearing a top hat. Other than that, I love you.

Grampa was a vaudevillian back in The Day.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 3:29 PM on January 17, 2008

I CAN HAS EL1TIST MYSOGYNISTIK VIO7ENT INCONGRVOVS JUSPLAINSTOOPID FAIRY TALE PLZ KTHXBI
posted by moonbird at 3:30 PM on January 17, 2008

XTIANS? Really?
posted by alby at 3:32 PM on January 17, 2008

Oh, and this is relevant to your interests: great treatment on the story by Hellbound Allee
posted by moonbird at 3:36 PM on January 17, 2008

"Oh Rueben, you read too many books." What the hell kind of librarian says that?!

The kind that prays that Rueben doesn't discover the works of Mendel, Darwin, and Galton, let alone Haldane, Dobzhansky, Hamilton or Mayr. And, lo, heaven above, should that he end up in the media room watching the film version of 'Inherit the Wind.'
posted by ericb at 3:53 PM on January 17, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Yeah, this is really going to give GTA IV a run for its money!
posted by clevershark at 4:03 PM on January 17, 2008

Was this developed by Rod and Todd Flanders?
posted by tkchrist at 4:26 PM on January 17, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

This feels like a very subtle parody of the tendency of lazy game developers who have exhausted cash-cow franchises to make cart racing games.
posted by Pyry at 5:14 PM on January 17, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

DANGER: HYDROGEN
posted by Legomancer at 5:52 PM on January 17, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

If God can do anything, why can't he make a good video game?
posted by erikharmon at 5:56 PM on January 17, 2008

If God can do anything, why can't he make a good video game?

Can God make a videogame so awful even He won't play it?
posted by Legomancer at 6:12 PM on January 17, 2008 [5 favorites has favorites]

Librarian: Rue-ban! You're a Rhinoceros!

Reuben: CAW!
posted by gamera at 6:27 PM on January 17, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

What if it's all just a giant joke? WOULDN'T THAT BE GREAT GUYS?!
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth at 6:52 PM on January 17, 2008

Anybody got a link to a warez version of this?
posted by First Post at 7:24 PM on January 17, 2008

My first video game was Animal Race on an 1802-based Elf computer with 1/8th K memory. You could place bets on various quadrupeds made of gray pixels the size of cinderblocks and then watch them run across the screen. We played it for hours. I just might have to buy this new sequel.
posted by moonmilk at 8:35 PM on January 17, 2008

So I downloaded and played the demo. It's great, it's even worse than it looks from the youtube clip. I did enjoy the intro splash screen and the sweet powerups in the race itself (did you know that horses can gain power by eating bones?), but I was kinda disappointed that you don't get to play the stage with the cannons and rockets.

There's also a movie that plays after you win the race which appears to feature a mute man running in terror while fireworks explode all around him. I'm not really sure what he's all about.
posted by xbonesgt at 8:44 PM on January 17, 2008

Do you think that Noah had any creature races in those days after the world flood? I mean, did Noah play and have fun with the animals... with racing games?
posted by Hildago at 8:44 PM on January 17, 2008

Grand Theft Ark!
posted by moonbird at 9:16 PM on January 17, 2008

With the amount of horse-ass footage in that movie, I must say the game seems aptly named.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:42 AM on January 18, 2008

Three Words:

Pony cannon. Awesome.
posted by Sparx at 6:04 AM on January 18, 2008