our collective childhood was not as perfect as it seemed

despite the incredibly high tech look of this electronic journal, i am not a programmer in any way whatsoever. so i can imagine that making a video game can be a rather daunting proposition, especially now that this


is not realistic-enough looking anymore. even if it is totally fun to mow down skinless terminators by the dozens.

but! one thing video game makers do seem to have down pretty well at this point is titling. that may seem like one of the easiest aspects of making a game: you either go really simple and descriptive (a la duck hunt) or you just come up with some nonsense word or phrase and slap it on there (see arkanoid). of course an exciting title is better, but it's not like Sunset Riders was any less fun because it wasn't called Yippie Ki Yay, Motherfucker? (actually, i may be wrong on that.)

this simple goal escaped a number of video game makers in the late 80s and early 90s, however, a fact i only recently realized when i saw a repurposed copy of the great nintendo basketball game Double Dribble. it had never occurred to me until that moment that "double dribble" is a TERRIBLE name for a basketball game, as it refers to:

- an illegal act in the game
- which is not particularly exciting and
- which occurs rather infrequently because
- it is basically a total fuck-up on the part of one player.

it would be just as sensible to name your game "Double Fault Tennis" or "Catcher's Interference" or perhaps "Illegal Substitution."

Double Dribble was not alone, however. we can also point to:

Kick Off! - again, this is one of the most mundane and unimportant parts of a soccer game. it's not like american football where, oh no, somebody might run it back for a touchdown! didn't you programmers even bother to watch the sport?

Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf - which involves NO FIGHTING WHATSOEVER. you don't even get to hit balls at anybody! this is especially abusive considering lee trevino was a former marine, so it's not like he didn't have any combat skill to offer.

Revenge of the Gator - sounds fun, right? maybe it's some game where you play a louisiana gator, stalking hunters in the swamps and tearing them apart with your powerful jaws.

oh wait, it's just a fucking pinball game. where you don't want to let the gator eat your pinball. LAME.

Sensible Soccer - easy, everyone. just kick that ball nice and steady, make sure everyone's safe and we can all go home without incident.

Fire Shark - i'm being a little bit harsh here, because this is one of the reliably fun games where you pilot a plane along a scrolling landscape just shooting and bombing the shit out of everything. but, well, i liked the idea of a shark that shoots fire a lot.

Silkworm - ok, now we have the OPPOSITE problem from Fire Shark. in this game you can play as either a jeep with a mounted machine gun or a missile firing helicopter. these are both excellent options. now, i understand that lots of military vehicles are named after animals - the hornet and tomcat fighters, and the scorpion and leopard tanks, for instance. but those animal names are picked for a quality they invoke - speed or power or ability to KILL YOU DEAD SUCKER. a silkworm? makes silk. which we then turn into fine handcrafted goods your mom can buy at macy's. TERRIBLE CHOICE.