Bears In Games

Johnny and Robbie tackle Final Fight 2 to ask: has the game got less gay?Alright, here's a Let's Play of sorts for the first couple of stages of Capcom's Final Fight. Johnny and Robbie tackle this brawler to answer the question: has Final Fight become less gay? (The answer? Yeah, kinda.) This episode has some interesting appearances, including Guy, Cody, and a skinny background version of Chun Li! We discuss the longevity of the brawler genre, what can be considered modern descendants of the brawler, ask what's semaphore, and spy a scrawny Guile! Maybe it's Guile's french cousin, Guillaume. Sorry 'bout the audio glitch near the end - mic cut out so we just had camera audio during our fun encounter with Freddie!

Rise of the Argonauts, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Muscle March all get their chance to show off the biggest, burliest, and Greekiest of musclemen in this episode of Bears In Games!First: Rise of the Argonauts! You think a game set in the Greek era with huge and muscular bearish guys would be easy to do an episode on. Hm. Nope. Mostly I just gripe about the terrible writing and pacing of the cutscenes. The game itself, when there is combat, actually plays nicely. Combat is fun, and the combos work well. Hercules is hot - really hot - but that doesn't save the game from being mostly mind numbing. That's too bad. Also: it breaks! Twice!
Then we have the Batman. Or is it just Batman? After a brief aside in which I mourn the loss of Siren: Blood Curse from my PS3 hard drive, I plow ahead to check out Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham Asylum. Yep, Batman's pretty beefy in this game. But that doesn't make Batman a bear, does it? We take a brief trip through Batman's history to see where and when he can be considered bearish. Other topics come up too, like: I would make a terrible superhero, Bane is sometimes super hot, and lobotomized musclebears, hot or not?
Finally, we close out with the straightest game of all time! After sitting on my Wii's SD card for nearly a month, I break out my copy of Muscle March and record - live - my first five minutes of playing it. It's quite something. The mechanics are quite simple, it just reads the up and down tilt sensors in the Wiimote. But! Muscle men! Thongs! Bears! Gaiety! An opening which looks like a weird mashup of Cho Aniki and Katamari Damacy!

You take the good, you take the bad, you talk about bears for a while, and there you have... the Bears In Games Best Of 2009 Awards! Featuring Our Fantastic Returning Guest Hosts Robbie, from Japan, and Max from Gamesters.ca!
The ground rules for this podcast was that we actually purchased and played the games which we bitch about. This narrows the playing field somewhat, except for Johnny, who has a very flexible idea of what is worth purchasing if it costs under $20. We start with the part that everyone loves... the Worst of 2009. What pissed us off? What annoyed us? What makes downright lazy game design? Contenders include Tomb Raider Underworld, Silent Hill: Homecoming, the original PlayStation Resident Evil, and more! We then move on to the Bear Awards, where we discuss the hottest bears to come out in 2009, as well as our most secret, shameful choices. There may be some Rufus discussed. And, as you can guess, Zangief makes a triumphant comeback. Finally, we talk about our choices for Game of the Year! You may be shocked! You may be stunned!

Dragon Age is here! Dragon Age is Queer! Get over it! Yeah, it ain't just Zevran who can get man-on-man action in Dragon Age! And he's not the only gay character either!
Bears In Games tackles the important subject of Dragon Age this week. It's true, there is gay banging in Dragon Age, involving elves, dwarves, humans, Qunari, you name it! But that's not the only reason a lover of the bearish type should purchase the game; for one thing, it's Dwarf character model is pretty damned hot. And you can make everyone in your party through off their clothes and go adventuring in just a jock strap. So we start off by having a look at the character creator, which honestly has some of the best options for creating a hot character that we've seen. Perhaps second only to Saints Row 2. Then we take this Dwarf adventuring, and see how much better the cut scenes are once you remove the clothing. (The answer? Infinitely better. Particularly when your father notes how great you look "in your great grandfather's armor.") Finally we finish with Kevin the Dwarf, Johnny's custom character, based on a heterosexual friend of John's, as he breaks hearts across Ferelden.

Street Fighter IV! And more Street Fighter IV! We end the Bears In Games One Year Anniversary Street Fighter Mantacular by seeing what our favorite Street Fighters are up to now. Plus: a very special montage.
Johnny and Robbie go head to head with some Street Fighter IV action! But, first, Johnny has to admit that he hasn't actually unlocked much in the game, due to the draconian unlocking policies. Which is too bad, because Gouken is totally a bear. Actually, everyone is looking a whole lot more ripped these days, from Chun-Li's Bear Thighs to Ryu's throbbing pectorals. And then there's Rufus. Johnny loves Rufus! He's so pleasantly dumb. And everything is capped off with a look at the cutscenes of Zangief and Rufus, and finally a Bears In Games One Year Anniversary Montage aimed at everyone's favorite gay bear character! Shananana!

Part 3 just checks out one game - but when you realize that it's Marvel Versus Capcom 2, you can understand why it takes about twenty minutes to go through all the burly, sweaty manliness that is contained inside.
If you are a fan of comic books, you might want to skip this one; Johnny and Robbie know next to nothing about them, and confuse "X-Men" with "Ultimate X-Men" or something shameful like that, and can't figure out why they're trying to slip in TWO Wolverines. But Marvel Versus Capcom 2 is a beartacular filled with bears and bearishness. Just exactly who is hot in this game? Lessee. Thanos? Maybe? Wolverine definitely qualifies. Sabretooth, yep. Zangief, of course. ("His big, burly shoulders are good to... HUG ya!") When ANAKARIS was alive, perhaps? Juggernaut! Gay Russian Colossus! M. Bison! The Hulk! Sadly, the Marvel fan seems to be much more on the bearish side than the Capcom side - apparently they didn't take enough characters from Saturday Night Slam Masters.

We continue our unwanted assault on Street Fighter with Street Fighter III, which along with Gem Fighter is considered the pinnacle of 2D fighting. Also, we look at Gem Fighter. Played at all the events on the Hard Core Tournament Scene.
Street Fighter III: Third Strike is one of Robbie's favorite games, and all kidding aside is thought of as possibly the premiere 2D fighting game. It's sheer skill, and the heights you can reach as a player are pretty crazy. You won't see much of that here, of course. It's just Johnny and Robbie picking apart the lack of bears in the game, and Johnny making frequent Streets of Rage II references which apparently just fly over everyone's heads. Skate! He's like Skate! So Hugo IS one of the Andore brothers, which explains the appearance of Poison during his victory pose. And he's the one bearish guy in the game, but he looks like a sad combination of FAS and repeated blows to the head. He's based somewhat on Andre the Giant, who was hot but never much of a looker.
Gem Fighter makes Johnny uncomfortable. It's based on the cute Super Deformed versions of the Street Fighter crew from Puzzle Fighter, but they're back together again for a... fighting game! And a very playable one, too. It's a little reminiscent of Mighty Final Fight, the NES SD adaptation of the burly-man filled arcade hit. So why does it make Johnny uncomfortable? Because they keep dressing Zangief in vaguely fetish-wear type outfits, except that it's a cutesy, silly version of Zangief that no sane person should find attractive. So it's driving Johnny to therapy, you see.

Bears In Games is a year old! And we celebrate with the manliest game series of all time, Street Fighter! Join Johnny and guest-host Robbie as they plow through Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Street Fighter EX 3, and the Street Fighter II Anniversary Edition!
Super Street Fighter II HD Remix is the first subject of our analysis, and we pick apart its Udon take on the Street Fighter characters. It's a great looking game, though some background animation perhaps has a little bit too much GI Joe quality about it, however there's one part of the package that isn't quite up to par: and that's Zangief's package. Seriously, it looks like he got some kind of strange groin reduction for this HD version. Johnny is happy enough with his purchase of the game, simply because it's great to have a definitive version of the epic 2D fighter, but Robbie is glad that he didn't spend money on it. Ah well, there's no pleasing everyone.
Street Fighter EX3, however, is a real head-turner. What looks like digitized FMV turns out to be "computer graphics" of "models" based on the 2D Ryu and Ken fighting! Who knew! The photo-realism is blinding. BLINDING. Also great is the classic cast of characters, sure to please all Capcom die-hards: there is Sharon, Skullomania, and of course Doctrine Dark!
Then we head over the the Street Fighter Anniversary Collection, which enables you to see who would really win in a fight: Street Fighter II Zangief, or Street Fighter II Turbo Zangief! We've always wanted to know, now is our chance to check it out. Seriously, though, it's a great way to see how the character art and moves progressed over the years. Zangief went from a kind of deformed troll to the muscle stud that he is today during this time, so it's worth playing!

We bring this exhaustive Final Fantasy retrospective to a close! And how! From the childlike characters of Final Fantasy IX to the strangely serious Final Fantasy XII, with a little Tidus, Yuna, JPOP, and Charlie's Angels all thrown in!Final Fantasy IX brings a sad dose of agreement among Johnny and Max. Yeah, it's more fun when we disagree, but neither of us have any great love for the game. It's not a bad game, just has a slightly off-putting art style. It harkens back to the look of the sprites in the NES era, but gives them a slight tinge of "Tender Moments". And as for bears, well, you've got the Liotta-like Steiner, and... Baku. If you don't mind a pig nose and some sort of mouse ears. Sadly, though, it's hard to find anything really hot when it's done in that art style, that continued into the DS remakes and Crystal Chronicles series.
Final Fantasy X makes Max angry, while Johnny just is ambivalent. It's got a different soundtrack, and charted a course that the last eight years of JRPGs have followed with both graphics and presentation. Oh, yeah, and Fry from Futurama is Tidus. Or Herbie. And it's a fairly bear-free zone, unless you like Auron, Wakka, or Kimahri, all of whom aren't quite in the bear category. Though some of the Besaid Aurochs do actually qualify, specifically Keepa and the one with the goatee. Oh, and the Al Bhed.
If you want arguments, Final Fantasy X-2 is sure to satisfy. Is it a disgusting rip-off, recycling two year old assets into a weird, insulting Charlie's Angels knockoff with bad J-Pop? Or is it a fast paced, light-hearted, and musical journey? Depends on who you ask. But you don't have to look to hard to see some gayness between the effeminate Logos and Ormi. And all those guys we mentioned above are back.
Finally, FINALLY, we look at Final Fantasy XII, and... don't really find much to talk about. There's Vossler, and Cid, and... Baasch, but all those seem like reaching. Everyone is super slim. It is kind of neat that it takes place in a semi-persistant world of Ivalice, previously seen in the Tactics games, as well as Vagrant Story.
So... what's next? Johnny and Robbie are gonna take on something big, hairy, and burly for the Bears In Games 1st Anniversary Special!

Johnny and Max now dive deep into Final Fantasy VII, with all its gay dates, bears, musclemen, and group assault. Also: Final Fantasy VIII, where magic meets Sweet Valley High. (Or is Sweet Valley High already magical?)

Final Fantasy VII. We all know it. Some of us love it. Some of us think that it's overrated and a step back for the series. But Max and Johnny are surprisingly agreeable on the subject, with both thinking that it is a great but flawed game, and one that pushed the JRPG genre as a whole in a new direction. But did you know about all the secret gayness in the game? Seriously. You can get molested by a group of big burly bodybuilders. There is much Cloud calling men Daddy. You can go on a date with the big bear Barret. Really, it is the most bear-filled of the Final Fantasy games, with two of the AVALANCHE team being big guys. Plus, to get on the date with Barret, you have to treat the women horribly, which is amusing in itself.
Then we move on to Final Fantasy VIII, and, thankfully, Johnny and Max have some spirited debate. Johnny likes the draw system, Max does not. So what does Final Fantasy VIII have to do with bears? Not a whole lot, really. There are two real bearish characters in the game, and one of them looks like Robin Williams. Which is not a good thing. The other, Ward, is Max's secret dreamboat.