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Secret Satan 2024! Start weeping, because it's time to play!
23-Feb-24 10:56am
#1
benstylus
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 550 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Gold Global Trader (9) Has Written 26 Reviews

We're getting close to March which means 1 month away from April Fool's Day.

Who all is interested in doing a Secret Satan gift exchange this year?

If you haven't heard of it before, it's like Secret Santa except the aim is to get someone a game they will absolutely hate. Then we all play it on April 1st and share our misery (or surprise joy).

Going to put a $10 price charting value minimum like last year. In fact, last year's rules worked pretty well so I'll keep them the same:

Your game must have a minimum value of $10 based on Price charting for a game in similar condition. (If it's on the cusp, take a screenshot for proof). That makes things interesting so that we don't just buy the cheapest craptiest game in the gamestop bargain bin. Note you don't necessarily have to pay $10, that just needs to be its pricecharting value. If you have a poop game already that fits the bill, by all means feel free to use it

You can send multiple games if you want, but at least one of them must individually meet that $10 threshold. (So a $10 game plus a $2 bonus game is fine, but sending five $2 games by themselves is not).

Creativity in packaging or sending bonus items may be fun and hilarious, but is by no means required. If you do receive something creative, please take pics and share, it will be more fun for all of us.


Post a message saying you're in, or send me a PM and I'll get you on the list! If we get at least 8 participants (we had 10 last year) it's a go!

We'll get everyone assigned in the first week or so of March, and then everyone will have 2-3 weeks to find and send something to their target.

As a reminder, one of the survey questions will be whether you are uncomfortable being paired with any of the other participants. That way if there is a certain user (or multiple users) on the site, you can privately let me know. I will keep that request confidential and make sure that they won't be your Satan.

Past years:
2023 https://m.gametz.com...
2022 https://m.gametz.com...

This year's group:

benstylus - Homie Rollerz Nintendo DS
Bleed_DukeBlue - Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX Nintendo Switch
brian9824 - Flatout 3: Chaos & Destruction Steam
citizen_zane - Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly Nintendo GameCube
Frank - Charlie's Angels Nintendo GameCube
Gypsy - Magic: The Gathering - BattleMage PlayStation no metacritic score
Heavyd814life - Agony PlayStation 4
Kommie - Hunt Down The Freeman Steam no metacritic listing
Oduomega - Yoda Stories (Game Boy Color) This version doesn't even have a metacritic listing
ryanflucas - King's Knight Nintendo Entertainment System no metacritic listing
sailorneorune - Spice World PlayStation, Smurf Racer PlayStation, Sesame Street Sports PlayStation, Deal or No Deal Special Edition Nintendo DS, and The Dukes of Hazzard: The Return of the General Lee PlayStation 2
SupremeSarna - Rollerblade Racer Nintendo Entertainment System and Mickey’s Safari in Letterland Nintendo Entertainment System no metacritic listings

Didn't play but needs an invite next year
tigg

1-Apr-24 12:34am
#141
SupremeSarna
Silver Good Trader

@Oduomega I believe you mean John Williams. I'm curious what your experience with the game will be.
@benstylus Are we supposed to keep our identities secret at this stage? Or can we reveal who sent what as the games start getting posted?
1-Apr-24 5:27am
#142
Oduomega
Gold Good Trader Global Trader - willing to trade internationally

SupremeSarna wrote:
@Oduomega I believe you mean John Williams. I'm curious what your experience with the game will be. @benstylus Are we supposed to keep our identities secret at this stage? Or can we reveal who sent what as the games start getting posted?I might have to look into that…it’s the same composer that did Indiana Jones and Harry Potter.
1-Apr-24 5:36am
#143
benstylus
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 550 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Gold Global Trader (9) Has Written 26 Reviews

SupremeSarna wrote:
@benstylus Are we supposed to keep our identities secret at this stage? Or can we reveal who sent what as the games start getting posted?
It's up to you if you want to reveal yourself


1-Apr-24 5:57am
#144
benstylus
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 550 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Gold Global Trader (9) Has Written 26 Reviews

Eagerly opening my gift, I discover what's inside...

image

Wow, I must have been REALLY good this year for Satan to want to punish me with this!

I've always been morbidly curious about this game but would never actually spend my own money on it, so this is absolutely perfect!

The 23 on metacritic is promising too!


1-Apr-24 7:42am
#145
Oduomega
Gold Good Trader Global Trader - willing to trade internationally

SupremeSarna wrote:
@Oduomega I believe you mean John Williams. I'm curious what your experience with the game will be.It wasn’t too bad. Certainly doesn’t hold my attention very much (most Gameboy games will likely be in this vein).
1-Apr-24 9:24am
#146
citizen_zane
GameTZ Subscriber Quadruple Gold Good Trader

A couple of weeks ago, this package arrived at my doorstep:



I hadn't realized that I had anything coming in from Limited Run anytime soon, so I was pleasantly surprised. That was, until I noticed from whom the package was.



Frank TZ?! More like Prank TZ! It appears as though my no-longer Secret Satan was off to a great start. After battling through many plastic backs and intimidating paper wrapping. I was blessed with the following:



Now, you may be thinking," Spyro? What's so bad about that? I love Spyro!" Sadly, I already know that this is about to get real ugly. The thing is, I have already read about this game because it was on the short list of games that I was considering for my victim, so I already have a pretty good idea as to what I'm in for. What's funny is that I've never played a Spyro game, but it is a series that I'm thinking about giving a shot. This entry, however, is one to avoid like the plague! Not how I wanted my Spyro cherry popped.

On the plus side, I really appreciated the nod to Urban Champion is Satan's wrapping paper.



Maybe Satan isn't so bad afterall.



1-Apr-24 9:34am
#147
benstylus
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 550 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Gold Global Trader (9) Has Written 26 Reviews

Looking at that return address... Pretty sure the entire state of Ohio is "Satan's Butthole" not just one city

1-Apr-24 10:13am
#148
brian9824
500 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader

I don't mind if my "victim" knows who I am. He told me he enjoyed some styles of shooters and was looking for a shortish game he wanted to play thru completely so i thought i'd try to ruin the genre with - https://store.steamp...

Not the WORST rated game, but have fun with that story.....

On the flip side my Satan sent me a real gem with a 18% overall rating on Steam which is - https://store.steamp...

I hate racing games and this should be somewhere between a proctology exam and a root canal...
1-Apr-24 10:38am
#149
SupremeSarna
Silver Good Trader

Satan has gifted me with some old tech! Given the excruciating pain of getting my NES to work, the demon is off to a good start.
[imgt w=1536 h=2048]https://pbs.twimg.co...[/imgt]

I dig into it to find two NES games. That explains the weight of the package. I figured it would be N64 based on the density. Looks like a bad skater and an early edutainment title. This’ll hurt, won’t it?
[imgt w=1536 h=2048]https://pbs.twimg.co...[/imgt]

There was also a Pet Simulator toy included, whatever that is. Satan did an acceptable job getting me excited for a decent one, only for me to open the unicorn one. The horror!
[imgt w=1536 h=2048]https://pbs.twimg.co...[/imgt]
1-Apr-24 10:40am
#150
SupremeSarna
Silver Good Trader

@benstylus My games were Rollerblade Racer and Mickey’s Safari in Letterland (both NES).
1-Apr-24 11:14am
#151
Bleed_DukeBlue
Triple Gold Good Trader

Props to my Satan. I’m pretty impressed. https://postimg.cc/g...

The package included a UK blanket (which is not as offensive as a UNC blanket but definitely up there as a Duke fan) and Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX on Switch. Its Metacritic score isn’t actually that bad, but my Satan clearly knows me, because this is a game I beat last year on two other systems for a badge in the Beat a Game thread and hated both times lol. Third time’s a charm? At least this version is portable so I can watch TV while I suffer through this.

Well played, Satan. Well played.
1-Apr-24 1:40pm
#152
SupremeSarna
Silver Good Trader

I beat both my games. Satan had moderate success with one, less with the other.

[imgt w=1536 h=2048]https://pbs.twimg.co...[/imgt]
Rollerblade Racer is the worst of the two games I received. It reeks of minimum effort. I know the dev team had six whole people on it, but dang. Kirk bought rollerblades and wants to join a competition. You race through a suburban street, a city, a beach, and a park, occasionally playing bonus stages. You’re timed, of course, and you have nine HP total (which is poorly conveyed). Lose it all or run out of time and you get a game over.

Kirk sometimes loses momentum even when you’re holding the +Control Pad (though that could just be my controller). Some obstacles, most notably the frisbee, don’t line up with the isometric perspective, so you’ll get hit even when you shouldn’t. You can jump over obstacles with A, which works fine. If you hold B and then press A, however, you do a marginally higher jump and then immediately take damage when you land. There’s also one droning tune throughout the game and a pretty gross color palette.

The beach stage is the worst, easily. Your intended path is so low on the screen, you have very little visibility. Fortunately, you can sacrifice some health to damage-boost your way onto the upper path, which has fewer obstacles and is a straight shot. The park is almost as bad, but by preserving some health from the beach, I managed to skate past the bratty babies throwing projectiles and the old folks reading newspapers with their legs kicked out in front of them.

Once you’ve qualified for the competition, you play a single stage that is just a combination of the three easy bonus stages. You then get a single screen where Kirk holds up a trophy and claims he won the race (I didn’t see anyone else competing). It even contains a typo (“I can’t wait wait”). I know the journey is supposed to be the destination, but I was expecting a bit more—at least in terms of frustration.
1-Apr-24 1:57pm
#153
SupremeSarna
Silver Good Trader

[imgt w=1536 h=2048]https://pbs.twimg.co...[/imgt]
Mickey’s Safari in Letterland is an improvement. It’s a braindead easy platformer where an invincible Mickey Mouse visits various countries and collects gems containing letters of the alphabet, then nabs a stone tablet. Goofy puts it through Willy Wonka’s gum-making machine and it deciphers a letter. You then have to identify which letter it is, slowly assembling the whole alphabet. Once you get them all, the forgotten Ludwig von Drake stares at the jumbled pile as the Alphabet Song plays.

The game is full of charming animations that would delight a young child or endear a jaded adult. You can bounce off a hippo or crocodile snout to reach higher ledges. Mickey will dust himself off and readjust his pants after crawling through a narrow passage. It’s cute if nothing else.

You don’t have to collect all the letter gems (I learned that by accident), but if you do, Mickey will sound out the three-letter words they spell and illustrate them with a picture. Yes, the game contains actual voice samples! And some of the pictures are nice nods to Disney’s pre-Renaissance library—I was amused to see the word “fox” represented by an image of the fox from The Fox and the Hound.

The game isn’t worth playing more than once, and it becomes a chore quickly. But it clearly had more effort put into its presentation than Rollerblade Racer did.

Quite frankly, the game I sent out is waaay worse than these. I’m eager to see it be uncovered. evil
1-Apr-24 2:19pm
#154
benstylus
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 550 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Gold Global Trader (9) Has Written 26 Reviews

SupremeSarna wrote:
I beat both my games. Satan had moderate success with one, less with the other. [imgt w=1536 h=2048]https://pbs.twimg.co...[/imgt]
He can't wait for you to do it again.

DO IT AGAIN.


1-Apr-24 2:32pm
#155
SupremeSarna
Silver Good Trader

benstylus wrote:
SupremeSarna wrote:> I beat both my games. Satan had moderate success with one, less with the other.> > [imgt w=1536 h=2048]https://pbs.twimg.co...[/imgt]> He can't wait for you to do it again. DO IT AGAIN.
Oh-nooo my NES broke again looks like I caaan’t
1-Apr-24 4:17pm
#156
Kommie
250 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader This user is on the site NOW (8 minutes ago)

brian9824 wrote:
I don't mind if my "victim" knows who I am. He told me he enjoyed some styles of shooters and was looking for a shortish game he wanted to play thru completely so i thought i'd try to ruin the genre with - https://store.steamp... Not the WORST rated game, but have fun with that story.....
ahem, so I've played some of this, and while it's so far not the worst thing I've played I did some research on it and there's a lot of controversy:

(all taken from random reddit posts on the game)




So the mod is a mess and the Leader (Berkan Denizyaran) of it was basically torturing and crunching the whole team and blah blah blah, but the Mainly reason of why is so hated is because it was so bad that Valve had to remove the Steam Greenlight and Berkan got a job in Activision for doing nothing (He does what Activision has been doing for years so that was a good decision i guess) and it cost more money than HL1 and HL2

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's a really terrible Half-Life fangame. That on its own shouldn't be an issue, there's plenty of bad fangames out there, some even worse than HDTF, but what people have an issue with is

The fact you have to pay money to play it

It's falsely advertised; despite having his name in the title, him being a heavy part of the marketing and the game's plot being all about him (the main character wants to hunt him down and kill him as revenge for beating him up during the Black Mesa incident, hence the title), Gordon Freeman is barely in the game, if at all

The developer's crapty actions; he still hasn't paid certain people who helped him work on the game

And, while this isn't a reason to hate the game, it's just really funny. Half the characters are voiced by YouTubers who do a pretty terrible job. Like, the president of America is voiced by fudging Keemstar. That's even funnier than him being played by Kevin James in Pixels.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This might be controversial coming from me: It's a scam. It was marketed as an official expansion for a while. Despite its failures it is still a paid product.You can still see it on Twitter sometimes. RR began using the fact that it sucks and is broken as a selling point once the jokes and memes picked up.

But the thing that really got to me and still gets to me was the way they treated their consumers on the Steam forums after release and on Twitter (it still happens on Twitter, i see it occasionally). Paying consumers were verbally abused, laughed at and treated like complete dirt and it still happens. It's just a big dumb joke to them and it grates on me because they are taking your money.

People joke about the game which just further perpetuates the scam. It just serves to trick more new players into buying it and giving them money. It's dumb and childish. It's a big insufferable blemish on our community and it has become inescapable.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



It's a borderline unplayable fan-game that's riddled with bugs and terrible gameplay design.

And more importantly the game is an asset flip with assets taken from other fan source projects without credit or permission from the original creators; and the main developer of the game is also a conman that never fully paid the other devs working for him or some of th voice actors. So by buying the game you're supporting a scammer.

All of this under the mantle of a storyline that has enough edge to cut steel; with a theme that takes itself too seriously and thinks it's a gritty and dark game when in reality the plot is laughable.

All of this is why it's essentially a meme in the community.





so, yeah, game sounds like it was made as a giant scam and the developers blocked/denied it being an asset flip that they stole from other games.
1-Apr-24 4:40pm
#157
benstylus
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 550 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Gold Global Trader (9) Has Written 26 Reviews

Sounds like Satan himself had a hand in it!

1-Apr-24 6:10pm
#158
KCPenguins
GameTZ Subscriber Gold Good Trader

benstylus wrote:
Looking at that return address... Pretty sure the entire state of Ohio is "Satan's Butthole" not just one city

Cleveland... it's Cleveland. Spent 1 week there for work. Not 1 thing good to say about it.
1-Apr-24 6:16pm
#159
nonamesleft
Double Gold Good Trader

SupremeSarna wrote:
benstylus wrote:> SupremeSarna wrote: |>> I beat both my games. Satan had moderate success with one, less with the other. |>> |>> [imgt w=1536 h=2048]https://pbs.twimg.co...[/imgt] |>> > > He can't wait for you to do it again.> > DO IT AGAIN. Oh-nooo my NES broke again looks like I caaan’tlaughing out loud
1-Apr-24 7:01pm
#160
benstylus
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 550 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Gold Global Trader (9) Has Written 26 Reviews

Work over for the day, I head home, ready to play my one game, all the while sailorneorune dreading her PILE OF GAMES.

So Homie Rollerz, what u got? Obviously I erased the save data first. I want this turd fresh, not someone else's leftovers. There are a bunch of characters, I pick the playa with a fro, obviously. Get to his menu and I have three options: Wizard Race, Challenge, and Garage. Let's hop into a race first. Only one track is unlocked. It's one of those kinds of games.

8 Racers, I start at the back of the pack naturally. And here we go! Hey this isn't awful, the framerate isn't amazing but it's bearable. The music is pretty funky. Then I have to turn. Controls are really twitchy! Let's see figure out stuff... L button makes me lean left, R button makes me lean right. Not sure how much use that will be but OK. There are some ramps, and boost pads... some items high up in the air after the ramps... is there a way to jump? Hm..Hmm... L and R together makes you hop! It also fills up a bit of a gauge on the left side of the screen.

Oh there are item pickups like Mario Kart! 3 different colors, do they mean anything different? I got a basketball. It bounces around when you throw it. So that's the green shell analog.

Anyway I jump off a ramp get a little too much air and now I am stuck on a wall, pointed up. I can drive about halfway up the wall before I start to slide back down. I stop accelerating, and I'm stuck here. Hop around a bit and finally free myself. That took a while so now I'm 30 seconds behind everyone else and I finish in last place.

Race 2, same track (last place isn't good enough to unlock a new track but I did get some reputation points). More flailing about, this time jumped down some stairs and landed on my side, after several seconds the game righted me and out me back on track. I pushed hard and nearly caught up, still last only 5 seconds behind the next guy. A little more respect.

Race 3, same track. Getting better, but getting pounded by traffic in the tight corners. And the items are always taken when I get to them. I did do a little better. 6th place and a few hundred respect.

I switch over to the garage, everything costs at least 2000 respect and I just don't have enough. I try challenge mode and it lets me wager my respect in a one on one race. I put up 5% and go, this is a different track at least. I come in second place! But it's out of two so last. Back to the Wizard Race.

Race 4. Same track. I am getting better as I learn the track more, this time I snag 4th Place.

Race 5, same track. a nasty hit with a swapper near the end of the race has me slam into a wall and drop to 5th place. I was running in third for a while.

Race 6, same track. Finally in the top 3! And my next race is finally nope nevermind. still not unlocked.

Race 7, same track. 2nd Place. I have about 6,000 respect now thanks to a top 3 and top 2 finish, so I head back to the garage to buy a new engine for my ride.

Race 8, same track. I immediately take a pretty commanding lead, and easily take first place thanks to being overpowered. Another big chunk of respect and finally the second race unlocks.

How will the next race go? We'll find out later.

Other items i found while playing: oil (banana), a wall (¿ block), invisibility (boo), fire (invincibility) and a couple others that don't have a Kart analog. There's a swap which immediately swaps your position with the Racer in front of you, and a lighning thing which slows down any Racers within a short radius of you.

Other than the music, this game is an average mariokart knockoff. Meaning it's bad but at least they didn't try hard.

1-Apr-24 7:57pm
#161
sailorneorune
GameTZ Subscriber Quadruple Gold Good Trader Gold Global Trader (7) Has Written 3 Reviews

So I also decided to participate in this farce... and my Satan wrecked me.

They sent me books: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (and I am the Girl with the Nah Mate), and Inheritance (way to go Satan, sending me the last book in a series that I might actually read).

Then they sent me a rather nice wooden box with games in it:

1st: Spice World PlayStation an indecipherable Wannabe of DDR that definitely did not Spice Up My Life. IT STINKS
2nd: Smurf Racer PlayStation not terrible, but the sound clips and slippery controls got on my nerves.
3rd: Sesame Street Sports PlayStation This was actually the best of the lot. Again, the sound clips were annoying but points for creativity for having a variety of events and Ernie's Bathtub Boat.
4th: Deal or No Deal 2011 Special Edition Craptacular Nintendo DS The nicest thing I can say about this is that I now have a replacement DS case.
5th: The Dukes of Hazzard: The Return of the General Lee PlayStation 2 Rated E for Ex-Boyfriend. dead face This is exactly the kind of gun-oil-and-armpit-scented macho bullcrap I thought I got away from many years ago. I have to wash my brain out now, you jerk. Thanks for the (bad) memories.



Crapfully yours,
sailorneorune feat. Valtteri Bottas


Secret Satan 2024! Start weeping, because it's time to play!