How do I hate Gazzy? Let me count the ways!
1. BUGS, BUGS, and more BUGS. Every Gazzyboy game has to have a bug. This is the Gazzyboy First Law. No matter how carefully you play, you will always a find a bug. Either something will mysteriously and for no reason vanish from your inventory right when you need it the most, or it won't ever go into your inventory in the first place. If an escape requires you to smash four skulls on a wall in order to lower the "beam cage" holding a samurai warrior captive, you can either smash the skulls two at a time from one view, which after having done so, the "beam cage" will never lower, or (and there's no clue as to why), zoom in to the closest view and smash them one at a time, which will lower the "beam cage." Why even allow the skulls to be smashed on the next-to-closest view two at a time if doing so will only cause you to have to start the game over from the beginning, especially when this is the next-to-last step? ARRRUGH!
2. BAD NAVIGATION. This has been especially true in 2010. The elevator in the Lighthouse Escape was probably the WORST piece of bad navigation I've ever seen in a game. Why is the elevator so hard to use when it's the core of playing the game? Why do you have to press the elevator button to open the door, click to go inside, turn around, click the button to close the door, click the button for the floor you want to go to, then wait as the elevator goes DOWN (even if you're going up) to get to the floors in the lighthouse? Why not just click the elevator, and once inside, click the floor, and presto! you're there. Is that so hard to code? GRRR! (Update: It seems that Stone Age Games is now in a competition with Gazzyboy to claim the title of Worst Navigation in a Game.)
3. POORLY-RENDERED GRAPHICS. I can understand the complexities of game design, but there is no excuse for bad graphics. Why are there always wires and bits of string that are only one pixel in width? You have to click exactly on the pixel to pick up a big coil of rope, even if you're clicking inside the apparent boundary of the coil of rope. Is Gazzy getting paid per click (probably), and is this why items are so notoriously difficult to find and pick up (again, probably). Gazzy's animations have been progressively getting slower and slower. The Office Escape was not even worth playing because it took, literally, a minute and a half for one wall to slide back.
4. USE OF CHRISTIAN HYMNS AS BACKGROUND MUSIC. This, though by no means the worst of Gazzy offenses, drives me crazy. Having grown up in the church, it drives me bonkers trying to play a game while "All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give" keeps looping through my head. Is there some shortage of non-religious midi files, or does Gazzy simply not know that a lot of the songs it uses are church trax?
5. ILLOGICAL ELEMENTS. The Cowboy Escape provides yet another example of why I hate Gazzy. In the game, you need to smash a lampshade to find a candle that you'll later combine with a piece of paper and the contents of a bomb to make a "key" to open a lock that gives you... wait for it... a key. In your inventory, you have a hammer and a wine bottle among other things. Guess what you have to use to smash the lampshade? You guessed it: the wine bottle. Now, why a wine bottle is better for smashing lampshades than a perfectly good hammer is beyond me. Apparently I'm not smart enough to instinctively know that lampshades must always be smashed using the one item in your inventory you'd never actually use in real life. I refer to this as Gazzyboy's Second Law, which states: The most illogical item to use in any given situation is always the correct item. Why this is so remains one of the great mysteries of the Gazzyboy faith.
6. ENGRISH (a.k.a. CHINGLISH). This is a problem not limited to Gazzyboy, but Gazzyboy seems to make the most infuriating flubs with it. When other games inform you that "especially there is no doubtful point," it's kinda quaint and cute. However, when Gazzy does it, it's always patronizing and infuriating. For example, at the end of the game, once you finally manage to escape, Gazzy will say "Hey buddy (or pal or, worst of all, guy)! You used your imagination to make wise use of objects in order to make perfect escape." Thanks for congratulating me on escaping your horribly unplayable game, Hop-Sing, but I'm not your buddy or your pal. (And if I'm a girl, I'm certainly not a guy.)
7. *related to 6, above* WRONG NAMES FOR STUFF. The example that sticks out in my mind at the moment is in the Everest Escape. You get a whole bunch of items from a backpack, and one item in particular is labeled "leg warmers." It is not, in fact, leg warmers; it's a camp stove used for cooking. How a camp stove came to be labeled as leg warmers is beyond me. Perhaps Gazzyboy was taking his usual dose of Gazzycrack at the time, as he does while naming items in many, many other games.
This is not a complete list of everything that's wrong, wrong, wrong with Gazzyboy games, but you get the idea.
Now it's your turn! Add a comment explaining all of the things you hate about Gazzyboy games. It's cathartic and healing to let it all out!
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