This is the Nintendo Seal of Quality. It used to be a sign to buyers that the game you are purchasing has gone through Nintendos fine tooth comb to ensure games meet a minimum standard and any old piece of shit game can't be released. It used to mean Bedroom Developers were given the middle finger by Nintendo unless they had an established foundation of development and could seriously prove themselves to be able to release Top Quality AAA titles.

Since the advent of Casual Gaming, or as it's more commonly known, Even Your Gran Plays Video Games, it is no longer of any value at all...

As someone who left games development due to pretty piss poor working conditions, it's becoming increasingly more frustrating to see pieces of shit flood the market, with even bigger pieces of shit advertising them. I mean for fucks sake, Girls Aloud, Ronan Keiting and Jamie Fucking Rednapp are now on the Nintendo payroll, and I'm pretty sure around the world they're paying similar standard, B list celebrities to make their products seem more "down to Earth". I mean if Ronan Keiting and his Ginger offspring can enjoy Brain Training together, so can you, right!?

And it's the developers I feel sorry for. I can feel the creative juices being sapped out of the industry in favour of the next casual title aimed at Joe the Plumber. Sure, you'll still have your groundbreaking titles, but as the budgets get bigger, only the big publishers like EA can afford to risk an edgy title. Knowing how EA loves to take risks rather than release the same turgid titles year after year, you can see why this doesn't worry me too much...

In any case, I thought I'd delve into the Nintendo DS collection and pick out some of the more poignant examples of the blatant disregard for the Seal of Quality.

The Sun Crossword Challenge

Jesus H Christ, Nintendo... how the fuck did this slip through the net? The Sun is one of the biggest pieces of shit newspapers going and their crosswords consist of clues like "not dog, 3 letters".

Who were you aiming this game at? The Sun sells 3 million copies a day some how, but surely research would have shown that most of this demographic are White Van Men and not your typical NDS owner?

Last time I was in a bargain book shop, a crossword book was 49p. Granted it wasn't as portable as your NDS but at 1/60th of the price, I'm not all that bothered about getting my puzzle fix.

If you're going to incorporate The Sun in anything and want to use their name as a viable mechanism for sale to their audience, I would suggest making a game called The Sun Page 3 Pocket Wank Pocket Game. Otherwise you're just wasting your time...

My Health Coach

There's nothing quite like guilt tripping people and making them feel ugly and overweight to guarantee sales of a shitty product. Throw in a free Pedometer and you're on to a winner!

There is one good thing about this game and that's the ability to turn it off. Heath Coaches are notorious for being patronising pricks and a game that couples dietary advice and asking you to stick to an exercise plan is likely to be forgotten about in a matter of hours.

Anyone that buys a game to help motivate them into doing exercise is doomed from the start. It's a great way though for Ubisoft to gauge how many gullible idiots they have for their next release "My Health Coach 2 : You're STILL a Fat Cunt"

Pony Luv

There are rather a lot of Horse related games on the NDS, suggesting to me that publishers are cashing in on the Spoilt Little Bitch DS Owners market..

"Mummy... I want a pony" must still be one of the most idiotic things a young girl can say and in an attempt to appease the little shit, you buy them yet another Horse title. Pony Luv is the worst offender I've seen, with it being a little too blatant in it's attempt to sway you to buy it, judging a game by it's cover and all that.

Pink - Check. Pony - Check. Hearts on the cover, implying your Shitfuck kid will love the game - Check.

Fucking hell... the cartridge could be a blank and Nintendo would've still bent over backward to give this piece of shit a Seal of Approval.

My Baby (Girl and Boy sold Separately)

Pedobear was having a field day when this came out, he's even on the front cover for fucks sake...

But seriously, another blatant cash in by splitting the same game into two cartridges, just like Nintendogs! The publisher must've had a field day when some genius came up with the idea of selling the same game with two different covers by simply altering the colour palette available for items. The ROM itself is 32MB so they can't even try the old chestnut of the game being too big, this is all about the monies.

With animals I can somewhat see the point of separating breeds, but a baby game equivalent is only going to sell in the girl edition, leaving Nobilis with a stockpile of My Baby Boy edition in a warehouse somewhere. They might actually need Ataris number for their landfill yet!

Imagine - Girl Band

Ubisoft must have Nintendos Licence to Officially Publish Shovelware. Seriously, there are over 20 titles in the Imagine series, from Fashion Designer to Figure Skater, Ubisoft have covered every single childhood dream job cliché in this range of shitty non-games.

Girl Band obviously sits somewhere between High School Musical and Bratz, and even though they don't have a hand in either of those pies, when you have your brilliant Shovelware Engine ready, why not spend 15 minutes tweaking it with those in mind!

They should perhaps think of some realism in the future and make some titles most peoples bastard kids are likely to become. Imagine - Receptionist, Imagine - Teenage Pregnancy and Imagine - Sucking Dick for Coke are titles all girls can reach and aspire to.

Paint by DS

When did colouring books become so last year and touching a screen to fill areas become so now?

I fail to see how this game took any more than a week to develop, and then how it got two revisions of the game to be published is beyond me.

If you can WiFi your artwork to a PC then maybe, and thats a _very_ loose maybe, this might justify owning if you have particularly artistic children, but other than that, just buy them a set of crayons and a colouring book. How else are you going to stick their cretinous "artwork" on your fridge?

What's Cooking - Jamie Oliver

As if to fully retract the Seal of Quality without formally saying so, Nintendo allow the release of a title where Jamie Oliver lends his face to a digital cook book and Atari raises the bar to impossible heights of Shovelware. I mean with this kind of brilliance, no wonder Phil Harrison left Sony for Atari...

I didn't like Jamie when he first appeared on the scene, but with Gordon Ramsey having some kind of personal mission to belittle Jamie at every opportunity, I find it hard not to feel sorry for him. Gordon Ramsey is after all, an arrogant, ginger dick and no-one deserves ridicule from that, no matter how great a chef they are compared to him.

One of my biggest gripes about this is I can't put my finger on the audience it's intended for. He's not exactly down with the kids so that wipes out that aspect. Is it Mums with Nintendo DSs? Perhaps Grans who like his boyish charm with Nintendo DSs are more geared to this? Who?!

Secondly, it's opened Pandoras Box to a whole new world of Celebrity Endorsed Non-Games. Sports games have been doing it for years, so why the hell can't other crappy titles?!

Games I see coming from Atari in the near future include Whose Not Funny - Ricky Gervais Edition, How Not to Lead - Gordon Brown Special, and my personal favourite, How To Look Good Naked - Gok Wan Teaches Your Daughter Some New Poses For Her Boyfriend (And at a later date, The Entire Internet)

Awesome... I can't wait!

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