Joystiq review: Yaris (Xbox 360)
Chris Grant, playing the Danny Trip to my Matthew Albie, and I concocted a rather novel concept for Joystiq's Yaris review on Tuesday, wherein Toyota's old marketing slogans would be littered throughout the text. Phrases such as "Moving forward advert gaming" or "Oh what a feeling we get when playing Yaris" would have been the inopportune solid object collision with your funny bone. Unfortunately, to chase the laughs and satirize the release of the Xbox Live Arcade game would be doing a disservice.
Crafted in a circle of Hell even Dante didn't believe existed, the developers of Castaway Entertainment created Yaris with an objective I can only believe is to cultivate anger in those who play it. I know an allusion to Dante's Inferno seems passé, the standard go-to reference for the sophomore year English Lit major, but forgive me because I feel that this accurately conveys what a truly diabolical creation this game is. Rosemary's baby's got jack on Yaris.
Sure, I'm complaining about an advertisement turned game, but if we learned anything from 2006 it was that advert games don't have to be soulless aberrations. While the Burger King titles weren't the greatest of games, they look like the Mona Lisa when placed side-by-side with Yaris. (In this case Yaris would be the rudimentary finger painting of a preschooler.)
Yaris does nothing right, and everything wrong. Every element, from the graphics to the controls to the online play, is just busted. Even at the price of free, this lemon isn't fun or worth the sticker price and no factory dealer incentives could get me playing Yaris again. In fact, I decided compile a list of things that would be more fun than playing Yaris:
Scooping my eyes out with a rusty spoon.
Watching the Yankees win the World Series for the next five years (I'm a Red Sox fan.)
Having the entire Internet replaced by teenage girls' MySpace pages, pink background, glitter .gifs, Fall Out Boy tracks et. al.
Removing red meat (fillet mignon, porterhouse, rib eye, sirloin, New York strip) from all restaurant menus.
Being married to Britney, 2007 edition.
Having every TV show I love replaced with repeats of VH1 "Celebreality" programing.
Test driving an actual Yaris.
Moving forward, we should hope today, tomorrow Toyota abandons advert-gaming all together. It'd just be better that way.
