Catherine
I had been reading a lot of buzz about this one for months. I'm not saying I was interested in the game at all, but that there wasn't much else to read about games since everything on the market is just more of the same. Sequels everywhere you look, really.
So Catherine. Catherine... The media made it look like some sort of social experience where you played a guy torn between two women with real consequences for your actions. I figured maybe the good vs. bad plot device may evolve if it were the focus of gameplay. I figured wrong. Just from the demo I could tell that the game was basically Dragon's Lair with mini games. Well, mini game, that is. You sit around and watch cut scenes for about an hour, then you get thrown into the dream world and you have a 2.5 dimensional block climbing game. Think of Qbert but only going up. The mechanics are a bit weird but basically you can pull/push blocks to suit your needs and pillows serve as your extra lives. Did I mention you're running about in your boxers? No, well you are.
After the second incredibly boring minigame session and what seemed like days of anticlimactic cut scenes I had to turn off the demo. Nothing happened. And I mean NOTHING. I got so far as to send a text message to the guys girlfriend and the tone of it set off a good/bad meter and I gave up. I couldn't handle watching any more cut scenes. They weren't even interesting.
As I've stated before, I don't tend to give games ratings, but for this one I'm going to give it one solid commercial toilet. The only thing it can really do is stink until it sucks away every bit of productivity...
