Video game number twenty one: Hail to the Chimp.

Game review number twenty one in my 365 Games in 365 Days project is "Hail to the Chimp".

This is the first game in my two part Saturday chimp saga.

I remember hearing about Hail to the Chimp a few years ago. I saw the cover, it had a monkey on it. It's apparently full of political satire. I assumed this was a game making fun of George Bush or something. I didn't read anything more about it at the time, it's sort of like a TV Show with a funny name (like "That's my Bush"). You hear about it, you smile, you always forget to watch it the night it comes on and eventually it goes off the air.

This game hasn't been on the radar of anyone I've ever met. Other than my initial encounter with the box art, I hadn't seen or heard about this game since. When I noticed it on a shelf, I thought...."Oh yeah, this should be one of my 365 games. It's gotta be worth at least an hour".

It's not.

The political satire is great. You live in an animal kingdom, where apparently...you're running against other animals to win the presidency. The news station "GRR" runs as you open the game, and in between matches. There are funny little political ads with your "candidate" (the first is a hippo named Ptolemy). I really like the humor here, but unfortunately, the game itself is fairly stupid.

This is one of those "Mario Party" style games, but it doesn't have anywhere near the fun factor of the aforementioned title. It's not as good as Fusion Frenzy. It's not as good as Viva Pinata Party Animals. In a word: Crap.

You run around various stages collecting "Clams", which you either deposit into a ballot box, hold on to for a certain amount of time (think Oddball in Halo), or simply try to accumulate before time runs out. I tried the first 6 or 7 different levels...and it was already becoming repetitive. I logged onto Xbox 360 Achievements to see what the gamerscore was like for this one....and the entire forum for this game suggests that you plug in 3 controllers and scream through them alone.

Lame.

Good concept, poor execution. The cut scenes are funny, but it's not worth playing this to see them.

Overall rating: 3 out of 10. I had to rate it better than Thrillville, because even this didn't suck that much.

Here are the first and most likely only achievements I will ever earn in this stupid game: