Richard's Online Journal
[28/07/07] Goth Panda Will Devour Your Soul
The morning’s post brought an unusual tchotchke - a starter pack of ‘Funkeys’. It’s the latest attempt at a collectible franchise, with a rather more advanced game element than most. At least, in theory. According to the blurb.
Assemble, my army of minions! Assemble!
For £20, you get a Mega Funkey, which plugs into your PC via a USB cable shoved up its bottom. It’s a cross between Marvin the Paranoid Android from the Hitchhiker’s movie, and Strong Sad from Homestar Runner. However you describe it, it’s an immeasurably depressed looking bit of grey plastic, and not exactly the most inspiring toy out there.
You also get two starter ‘Funkeys’, which are the £5 a pop collectible bit of the whole deal. In our pack, we got ‘Deuce’ and ‘Lotus’, quickly re-christened ‘Satan’s Little Helper’ and ‘Goth Panda’ respectively. If you put them facing forward on Marvin’s back, they hook on with magnets and get recognised by the system. Put them on backwards, it looks like they’re having a poo down his neck.
Maybe that’s why he looks so miserable.
The actual game teaches several vital life lessons, but mostly that money is everything and social acceptance entirely predicated on your ability to spend. It takes place in the Funkeys’ day-glo world; a cheery land of overt cartoon racism and cheap-ass mini-games. The map is scattered with buildings containing activities, teleporters to other zones, and if you’ve paid £5 for a little plastic model of a character allowed into them, you can plug them into Marvin and enter freely. If not, you can piss right off. Pauper.
Honestly. It’s a kids’ game. Is ACCESS DENIED really the most appropriate message to be throwing in their face as they try to explore the world? ACCESS DENIED! ACCESS DENIED! It kinda takes the friendliness out of the marketing guys’ desperate slang-filled attempt to appeal to the little purse-vacuums. You know the style. You can see it coming, as soon as you hear that you get your own ‘crib’ in ‘Funkeystown’, or note that Satan’s Little Helper is described as being ‘effortlessly hip’. Truly, very awesome cool, man. To the max!
“Go on, Goth Panda. Do your Care Bear Stare for the kiddies...”
Quick calculations based on the box suggest that a full set of these toys, and thus an all-access pass, will cost you around £220. In an expansion pack, I hope to see Marvin break down in tears at being locked out of the world’s many attractions. “Why?” he’ll sob to the player, rubbing his little eyes. “Why don’t you love me? Why must you condemn me to this life of solitude and loneliness? Can’t you do without one teeny-tiny little insulin shot?!”
The starting games on offer include a version of Mah-Jong that’s so simple, it practically plays itself, and a version of that free bubble-popping game that makes Bejewelled look like Mastermind. A character suggested I go speak to the Mayor, presumably to kick off the story, but neither he, nor the map, proved any use in actually doing that. Instead, the action was mostly spent ambling around trying to find anything to do.
Plugging Goth Panda into Marvin lets him into the Goth Panda Sanctuary, complete with an awful Bust A Move clone that entertained for roughly five seconds. And that’s about as far as I could be bothered to play. If there’s somewhere that Satan’s Little Helper unlocks, I didn’t find it. Most of the teleporters scattered around the gameworld were broken down, awaiting… something. Pimping out the old ‘crib’, as the younglings say, didn’t really appeal, especially after getting mugged by a walking flashlight on the way to the shops and having my money stolen - a mugging cheerfully described as ‘tax’
What? Tax isn’t kiddie-friendly? Don’t be absurd. I remember playing with my old Transformers toys, spending hour after hour wondering if Optimus Prime paid his road duty. Not to mention making sure that Soundwave never knocked out an illegal mix-tape between missions. Evil’s one thing, but that would have been naughty!
Somehow, I doubt anyone in the office will be rushing out to collect the full set. Still, if other collectible franchises are anything to go by, they’ll probably fly off the shelves. Especially Nibble. He’s froody.