A console’s last years are a special time. With new shiny systems
available, console manufactures start to loosen up their restrictions
on what types of games can reach the market. Games with sub-par
production values soon flood the stores with promises of cheap thrills.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Zombie Ninja Pro-Am is a prime example of such
a game. Its poor game mechanics and lackluster story highlight the
worst golf/fighting/racing combination to ever reach store shelves.
In-fact it’s the only game which combines these three elements, and for
good reason.
You'd
think in a game based off a TV show would have some sort of story, but
think again. In the games cut-scenes, the characters are casually
thrown together with out any since of purpose. They constantly rehash
jokes and story lines from the shows previous seasons. Some of it was
funny the first time, yet the recycled material doesn’t pass the test
of time. Apparently Frylock, the flying container of French Fries,
received an invitation to join a country club. Master Shake, that’s the
milkshake cup, thinks he is a much better golfer than Frylock, so he
takes the invitation for him-self. We soon find our game’s namesakes
running amuck around the county club.
Master Shake is the only
character you get to play golf as in the single player campaign. He can
use four different clubs though out the twelve courses. You’ll get a
wood, wedge and putter, as well as a sword. The first three are self
explanatory, while the sword is pretty useless as a club. It’s used
mainly as a melee weapon. With these three real clubs you will stumble
your way though the worst golf game of all time. Why is it so bad? Well
for starters you have no clue where your ball is going to end up once
it leaves the club. Upon making impact, your ball soars in air towards
direction of the course’s countless obstacles. Obstacles consist of
sand traps, as well as T.V. show specific jokes such as an
“environmentally friendly super toilet of death”, and “giant wooden
spaces ships”. There are well over ten zany obstacles per course, each
set in the worst places possible.
As if the multiple course
hindrances weren’t enough, it seams the way you actually hit the ball
was an after thought. You’ll use the tired old three button press
slider bar for measuring power and accuracy. You’ll press X once, and
the slider will move to the left to indicate how much power you want to
use. Then by pressing X again it will set your power rating and start
to slide back to the right. The right side of the bar has an accuracy
ranger, the closer you get to pressing X with in the center of this
ranger, the straighter your ball will fly. The game is very
unresponsive, especially when tiring to produce short puts. You will
constantly over shoot puts due to the slider bar not registering inputs
quickly enough. It also takes a lot of time to get used to the speed of
the slider. It moves very quickly on the power selection, but then
slows to a crawl in the range area. This means that while you will most
assuredly not get the power setting correct for the shot you need to
make, you will hit that ball perfect every time.
Hitting the
perfect ball doesn’t even matter if you can’t put that ball right where
you want it. This is why golfers use forward and back spin to
accurately guide their shots. Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Zombie Ninja
Pro-Am does not include the ability to put any spin on a ball. All of
your shots will fly as if the ball was hit directly in the center. This
causes you to either overshoot the ball, or put less power on the shot.
Yet, with such a bad swing mechanic, it’s next to impossible to get
anything done correctly.
Another major hindrance is the fact
that you have no ability to get an overhead view of the course. You’ll
get a small undetailed map in the lower right corner, but that’s it.
All of the courses are covered in trees that obscure your view, save
for a few yards ahead. So, you’ll blindly swing away hoping that you’re
pointing in the right direction. Here’s where the many obstacles come
in to play, as because you can’t see where they are, you’ll perpetually
hit them. Every obstacle except for the sand trap will cause you to
lose that ball and have to repeat the shot over again. It soon becomes
a tedious game of trial and error.
But wait, there’s more. For
unlike any other golf game you must walk to the spot where your ball
has randomly landed. Walking though the course will cause series
specific baddies to appear out of thin air. These will be things such
as metallic turkey’s from the future and brownies that have been
spliced with fly DNA. These monsters will haphazardly make there way
toward you to be killed. In this platforming part you can play as
another character, Frylock. Frylock will shoot lasers out of his eyes
and has the ability to target enemies with guided laser balls. He also
puts up the type of fight that your one hundred year old great grandma
would shrug off as weak. While his lasers have range, they don’t have
any power. It takes far too many to down single foes. Couple that with
the fact that he has the glassiest of jaws around, and is constantly
dieing from just a few hits. He can charge up his laser eyes and
release a simi-powerful AOE explosion, but it takes so long to charge
you’re better of not using it, or him for that matter.
Your
other choice is Master Shake who will get melee attacks. By default he
has a golf club and a sword for a weapon, but can also pick up others.
The default weapons both have a 1 2 3 combo and that’s it, but they are
by and far the most effective. The superfluous pickup weapons have
virtually no use at all. The shotgun for instance, which one would
think a bit more powerful then a golf club isn’t, as the thing sprays
bullets so far apart it hits very little of what you are pointing it
at. Speaking of spraying, you can also pick up a can of spray paint,
which literally does nothing. I’m not sure if it’s even indented as a
weapon, because if you use it nothing happens.
Now that the golf
and combat have been discussed, it’s time to move on to the most
annoying part of the entire game, golf cart racing. After you have
beaten a course that features the series' “frat boys from outer space”,
you will engage in a race around the course in your golf carts. The
courses this time will be littered with speed boost and homing rocket
power ups. Your job is to beat the other racer around the track. It
sounds simple enough, but from the very first time you hit a jump,
you’ll know you are about to have the worst racing experience possible.
Every time your cart leaves the air it completely spins around. Every
bump you hit, every hill you summit, will send you spinning like a top
and land you facing the wrong direction. Toss in the fact that when you
get hit by the other cart’s missiles, which will happen very often,
your cart does a 540. You’re constantly spinning around while tiring to
avoid bumps and hit the power boots icons. The racing is extremely
rubber band, allowing the other cart to forever be right on your tail
shooting missiles at you. The only way to win these races is to avoid
any bump in the road and hit every single power boost icon, other wise
your competitors will repeatedly bombard you.
Aqua Teen Hunger
Force: Zombie Ninja Pro-Am is one of the worst games ever conceived.
Its jumbled mess of poor golf, combat, and racing is the PS2’s version
of what hell is. A game so bad, that it could only have been brought to
market via the forces of the dark lord. Let’s get one thing straight
here; I'm not suggesting the person whose decision it was to release
such a horrendous game is the devil. I’m telling you he is. For no
mortal man could play this game through the meager three hours
experience and not want to immediately set themselves on fire in relief.
