Lizzie McGuire 3 - Homecoming Havoc/Coors

Game: Lizzie McGuire - Homecoming Havoc, Buena Vista Games, 2005, GBA
Beer: Coors, 24 fl. oz., 5% abv
# of beers consumed during play: 1
Level Reached: 3rd Level
Level of Intoxication: Buzzed

Game
Let's get this out of the way...I'm reviewing this game simply because I couldn't think of one, went the random route, and when my eyes opened, I was looking at this. Call it fate, serendipity, the gods at play, or simply a terrible sense of timing, the fact remains I played this game while drinking a beer. I think that in and of itself is worth something. What it's worth, I'm not sure. One thing I can say for certain, shovelware exists, oh yes it does, and it knows you're out there.

Gameplay
That is to say, the lack thereof. The makers of this title must have been so thrilled to be working with the Lizzie McGuire license that they completely forgot to put the gamey type stuff into the game they were making. This piece of software consists of a series of micro-games, all of which fall into a specific category such as rapid-tap, multi-tap, timed-tap, in-motion, and others. What this basically means is that every few seconds your kid (or you if you run a games review website) will have to figure out which control to operate within a split second of the game starting, and then operate it correctly so as not to lose one of your precious chances. The micro-games run the gamut from banal "avoid falling debris" games to banal "save the rubber ducky from mysterious whirlpools in the water of the bathtub you are in" games to slightly more intriguing but still banal "help the monkey avoid the prison-escapee finding spotlight." I wish I could make these themes up.
The games operate within a framework of levels, modes, and game types. Each level is broken down into several modes, inexplicably called things like Friendship Mode and Stumble Mode. Each mode seems to have a different subset of game types, with Stumble Mode having more difficult and less forgiving games. Each level is rounded out with a Dance Competition, which is a timed button press game. A banal one.

Graphics/Sound
The graphics are precisely as one would anticipate out of a title that falls firmly in the storied realm of shovelware. Hurried and unrefined, the visuals in this game are a mishmash of hideous colors, bland sprites, and seizure-inducing backgrounds. The awesome effects the GBA was famously capable of are absent, and the entire game relies on the games and interstitial visuals going by too fast for anyone to notice how truly ugly they are. The really sad thing is that just by looking at the game, one can easily tell that if the developers had tried a bit harder, that the game could have been beautiful, as all the graphics have a solid underlying design to them, they are just disjointed and unfinished. Had the developer taken the time with this game that higher-profile IP's enjoy, it might not have been so bad. Unfortunately, shovelware is what it is, and the game was rushed out solely to make a buck off of undiscerning pre-teen Lizzie McGuire fans. More's the pity.
The sound is without a doubt the most obnoxious thing I've ever laid ears on. The soundtrack is three songs which repeat relentlessly, ad-nauseum, with no breaks, no variation, and no inspiration. When you lose a round, a new song will seamlessly usurp the old one, and none are any better than the others. When music composers have committed sins which cannot repented, they are doomed to forever work on games like this. The people who invented synthesizers would have poisoned themselves had they known this is the end to which their creations would have been applied. Seriously. The music is really that bad. Unfortunately, the sound effects aren't any better, the entire cadre of effects screams "stock sound libraries" and much like the music, a handful of effects are repetitiously used to the point where a casual listener may just pick up an axe and slay an entire subway full of passengers just because mankind is not genetically equipped to handle this kind of aural input. This is what police would use to drive hostage takers to surrender if they wanted to end it within minutes.

Story
From what I could glean from the good 'ol internet, this game is based on a now-canceled Disney tween show called Lizzie McGuire, starring the annoying Hilary Duff before she blossomed into a young woman with no-longer family-safe body parts. The television show featured animated segments in-between the live action plot points, which this game has adopted and expanded upon. This particular game, as can be divined from the sub-title "Homecoming Havoc", sees the titular Lizzie on a quest to attend the homecoming dance, and best out her rival, "unnamed spoiled bitch" in the homecoming dance competition, thus naming herself as reigning Homecoming Queen. Any mention of cute, horny boys is curiously absent.

The glaring problem with the entire premise is of course, the source material is so scant to begin with, and the target audience so narrow, that even if this game were pure sweet gaming gold the chances it would be played by any significant portion of the fickle gamer population are already so slim it could teach Kate Moss how to lose weight. The fatal flaw that really makes this shovelware is that the game attempts to seduce all three of the lonely little girls that like both the Lizzie McGuire show as well as gaming, and who like the animated segments of the show enough to want to play a series of pointless microgames within such a necessarily limited universe. Any other purchases come from bewildered parents who have no idea what their daughters are interested in, are out shopping for a birthday present and happen across an intellectual property that they think their child might have watched once or twice in the last three years. They buy it, and when the girl opens said gift on the day of her birth, grimaces as though she has just had to chew an engorged dung beetle and the parents find they have foolishly lost/thrown away/eaten the receipt, the game is thus remanded to a forgotten corner of the house, the money stays with the publisher, and they cheerfully add that sale to a chart showing executives why making such games is a win-win scenario. And thus the blighted cycle is repeated. Long story short: the story sucks and makes me unhappy.

Beer
Beers don't get much more pragmatic than this. If communist Russia had this brew, this is the beer they would have been passing out in the food lines. The can is a drab tan color, evoking mental images of gub'ment cheese and military MRE's. The only true artistic accents on the can are the small woodcut pictures of the Rocky Mountains and the Coors crest lions. Coors, to its credit, knows exactly who buys and drinks it; the same people who have bought, drank it and introduced their coming-of-age offspring to it for years hence. These people don't need fancy graphics or cool commercials with fictitious dancing girls to enjoy their barley-pop. They just need the beer to be cold and the game to be on. Without a doubt, Coors is aimed at the salt of the earth. There's a fine dignity in that and for that reason at least, I'm happy I drank it.

The taste is exactly what one would expect: it's beer, it neither excites nor offends. It is the answer you give to an alien who may ask you "What is beer?" It is the thesis of neutral. A spartan balance of hops and grains in the taste, along with a carbonation level that is designed for long, glassy-eyed pulls makes this an ideal brew for people who routinely tailgate at football games or have a television in their garage. Thankfully, though it is a carefully weighted balance between good and bad, it does have a taste, a rather full taste in fact, which allows this beer to actually rise above the level of "fermented water" that many other beers seem to fall into.

The odor is similarly neutral. Dull scents of fermentation undercut with just the right amount of alcoholic smell. I mean it when I say that this beer is as commonplace as it gets. For many, that is exactly what they want, and more power to them. This is textbook beer, and as far as beers go, not a bad place to jump into the world of beer from. If this happens to be the baseline with which one ends up judging all other beers, there is a solid foundation here upon which to expand.

The intoxication is slightly sinister, with a feeling in my stomach akin to that of a nest full of vipers made out of dynamite. The sensation is a squirmy, unsettled feeling, with the unspoken knowledge that strenuous physical activity will ignite said dynamite vipers, resulting in pain and suffering all around. The 5% alcohol content belies the level of intoxication this beverage can convey, especially given the ability to chug this and the way the actual whirlies don't set in until later. This is officially "creeper" beer. As such, drink judiciously. On the other hand, if you are attending college and belong to a fraternity, drink copiously and wake up in a strange house around people you don't know. This beer is capable of taking you there.

The Matchup
In my opinion, this game is a shining example of why people should drink when playing games, for the simple reason that if you happen to mistakenly stumble across one of these travesties in your gaming travels, being hopelessly drunk will shield you from the shock of the abysmal experience that is the dreaded shovelware. The beer on the other hand is not bad, not good, but perfectly suited (in much higher volumes than consumed here) to insulate you from the true pain and embarrassment of playing a game such as this. It also provides a handy excuse just in case you get caught playing this game by some of your buddies. Just say you were so blitzed you thought you were playing Zelda.

Cheers/Game on.