I…I don’t think this is even a game. What even is this?
The internet is telling me that Videomation was released by Toy Headquarters (who would later shorten their name to THQ) in 1991. It is indeed not a game – the cup on the box art even says so!
Well damn, that looks exciting! Tigers and musical notes, all coming to life! Throw those two pencils and a paint brush in the trash – those are for jerks. Videomation is all you’ll ever need to do art, ever again. This is gonna be great. Let’s take a look at the options this whole new art system gives up.
After starting the game drawing and animation system, you’re taken to a blank palette with a handful of options. Want to draw lines? It’s got you covered. Circles or ovals? You know it’s got those. A bucket fill that sometimes works? Obviously there. Varieties of the same hideous pastel colors? I’ve got just one word for you: several.
“But wait!,” you might ask as your mouth waters in excitement. “I thought this was also an animation system. Where’s my animation, dammit?!” First of all, calm down. Second, you’ve got a few options there, too (emphasis on “few”). Videomation doesn’t want to bog you down with having to think or be creative – you do that all day at work! So, it gives you about a dozen different animated images that can move in one of three different ways. Three! You can’t even name that many ways. Just look at this bird:
Wow. Just…wow. That thing moves, and not in a straight line, either. It’s curved. You can’t just MAKE birds curve like that. Videomation truly does the impossible. Let’s see what else we can do!
Look at this masterpiece. It has like 4 different lines, a billion penguins, a neon horse, and a person in a car who may have been decapitated. Jasper Johns can’t dream of making works like this. If Pieter Breughel the Elder was alive to see this, his head would explode out of pure embarrassment. Videomation has shown me my truly calling in life – playing Videomation.
But why stop there? You can change the background to make it black, or something terrible! You can add more horses. I bet you could even have two suns if you wanted to. With the sky truly being the limit, I went to work on my next perfect creation.
Lines! I’m a regular Piet Mondrian, all thanks to this incredible drawing and animation system. The Art Institutes are banging on my door, begging me to join their program. I can’t do it – my genius must be realized. They are beneath me, and they belong there.
After weeks of meticulous work, it is finally complete. My greatest work is complete. With the help of Videomation, I have gone above and beyond the very concept of art itself and touched the face of God.
Hahaha, just kidding, this thing is absolute garbage. At least Color a Dinosaur had the decency to have dinosaurs in it. A “feature” of this game is that you can play the animations over and over, to show your friends (before they stop being friends with you because you do stuff like playing Videomation, of course). Surely you can save these to the cartridge for easy access, right? Wrong! In its final indignity, Videomation doesn’t save anything, and recommends that you use a VCR to record your creations. There’s probably a joke to be told there, but I…I can’t do it. I can’t write any more about this game drawing and animation system. You win this round, Videomation.
Next week’s game is the sequel to a game we’ve reviewed previously, and it probably won’t break my brain, which is nice.