Fans of unusual and ludicrous games take note: the Playstation 2 remains a powerhouse in the venerable category of "Games You Can't Believe Got Made".
Yes, this is still the best one.
Enter: Lowrider, the game combining Parappa the Rapper and the most impractical and ridiculous modifications to junky old cars that you can imagine.
This game caught my eye as I was trolling Metacritic for PS2 games I may have forgotten. I enjoy spotting inconsistencies, and this jumped right out at me:
How was this not a critical darling?
Oh, that's how.
Honestly, even after watching the intro video twice, and manually reaching up to close my jaw, I still thought this might be some sort of racing game with a low-rider vehicle theme. It seemed plausible, given there are a few shots of cars moving in groups, and the summary claims you can upgrade your "engine", a feature that does not make an appearance in these videos. Nevertheless, having seen this in the intro, I remained cautiously optimistic:
From the window, to the wall.
Suffice it to say, gameplay wise, the intro is far more accurate than I might have expected.
This is a near-feature-complete demonstration of everything in the Lowrider universe.
Now, without having tried the game myself, it appears to be a Parappa-The-Rapper like rhythm game where your ability to time button presses with (some regrettably...unrefined) music appears to determine how high you bounce and therefore your score. There appear to be two games modes, peak bounce (highest bounce wins) and total bounce (points per inch bounced).
See? Identical. Cue the copyright infringement lawyers.
Honestly, I think most of us can agree that any analysis deeper than this is probably unwarranted. However, if you used to play this game, by all means give us a first hand account in the comments.
Michael Bay should use this as inspiration for his next Bumblebee redesign.
Copyright: Sony, Katamari Damacy, Lowrider, Parappa The Rapper, Amazon