Join the new world

The other day I received a phone call from a representative of a newly founded video game company called “MidCom”. He invited me to test out and review a new video game the company had made based around eRepublik. The name of the game: eRepublik Fighter! The aim: to compete in a tournament featuring fighters from around the eWorld!

I thought it sounded pretty good, being a big fan of fighting games myself like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. I accepted the invitation and received a free trip to the MidCom Studios in eAmerica. MidCom’s staff were a nice bunch of people and all were very friendly – a little too friendly for my liking.

I was taken to a room where the game was hooked up to a big TV. I took a seat on the nice leather armchair provided for me. I was handed the control as the producers of the video game took their seats around me.

What I thought would be a really fun experience turned into what had to be the most frustrating moment of my life. Allow me to share with you all my experience and thoughts on MidCom’s “eRepublik Fighter”: a game that could be crowned the worst game in history.

(If you want to view the images on a larger scale just click on them).



As soon as you start the game you get sent to the select screen where you can pick one of fourteen fighters from around the eWorld. The first thing I noticed when this screen came up was that a lot of the fighters were wearing some type of hat. Lucky for the ones with hats I knew what eCountry they were representing, but ones without the hats I had no clue who the hell they were meant to be.

So I went through all the fighters and, being an eAustralian, I decided to go with what my bias heart told me to pick – eIndonesia. How could I go past that guy? Look at him in his karate outfit and he is still wearing his awesome hat! This guy is a total bad ass if he is going to fight with his hat on!

So far so good, the game looks ok. I probably should have stopped at this point because I was going to be in one hell of a ride…



Stage 1: eAustralia. You have to fight all thirteen fighters in random order. I was annoyed that the Dropbear used to represent eAustralia was… extremely out of scale. I asked the producers why they made him so small and they insisted it was for game balance. Fair enough, but all the thing did was jump! That was his main attack! He did no punches or kicks or didn’t even throw leaves from gumtrees at me!

This thing was really easy to beat up. Every time eAustralia went to jump me, I performed the flying uppercut. Hmmm… so not only does eIndonesia look like the character “Ryu” from Street Fighter, but he also has the same moves as him. I pointed this out to the producers, who told me it “was just a total coincidence the two were the same.”

Yes… because that is how coincidences work. I’m sure you didn’t know Street Fighter was out like twenty years before you made this game. I didn’t bother arguing. After destroying eAustralia, I moved onto the next round.



Stage 2: eAmerica. Good to see they’ve turned Uncle Sam into some magician. Being an eAmerican company I would have thought MidCom would have made him all bad ass action hero from the 80s. Instead, I got some old guy shooting out stars and stripes – how corny. He also tossed his hat around as well during the match and it sucked I couldn’t throw my hat back at him.

The match itself was ok. A little back and forth at the start but Uncle Sam’s stars and stripes had nothing on eIndonesia’ fists of fury!



Stage 3: eHungary? Yeah don’t worry I was just as confused when I saw the fighter representing eHungary. At first I thought it was Ellen Degeneres or a slim version of K.D Lang. I then realised it was a mad scientist. A mad scientist representing eHungary? I would have thought that they would have made eGermany a mad scientist.

That also got me wondering: where are the other eCountries like eFrance, eItaly, eIreland, eJapan and eChina? I asked the producers this and they said they’ll be including them in eRepublik Fighter II when it gets released. Fair enough, you don’t want to use up all the eCountries in one go and have nothing for the second game.

Back to the round. eHungary just threw flasks full of chemicals at me. Red ones hurt a lot, yellow ones made you move slow and greens ones screwed with the controls. There wasn’t much to this fight. Once you figure out how to play with opposite controls you win.



Stage 4: eBrazil. Looking at this guy I assumed he was going to be kicking soccer balls at me or was going to nail me with some stiff kicks. Instead, he threw lightning. Lightning! Of all the things to give eBrazil, they gave him lightning!? How the hell does that work!? They should have just made him into a green and yellow Pikachu!

In Street Fighter, there is a character from Brazil called Blanka who uses electricity. I asked if that was a coincidence and they laughed at me. They said “electricity and lightning isn’t the same thing!”. I beat eBrazil but I really wanted to beat myself senseless with the control.



Stage 5: eRussia. Lovely, a Russian wrestler representing eRussia? Now that HAS to be a massive coincidence! There’s no way that MidCom knew that Zangief in Street Fighter is a Russian wrestler! This match was a bit tough. eRussia tried to grab me and pull me apart. He even stated throughout the match “I must break you!”. It got annoying after he said it the 20th time. Just keep this guy at a distance and you pretty much win the match.



Stage 6: eSpain. Lovely, I knew this game was going to feature stereotypes. Even still, eSpain looks pretty cool but he was a cheap fighter! His main move was to call for that damn bull! It wasn’t like the bull appears, tries to gore you and leaves. He stuck around for the entire match! You had to beat it up and kill it before you can attack eSpain. What really annoyed me was that eSpain could call for another bull as soon as you beat the one that is out!

The only way I won this match was when the time ran out. I won by default. That’s right. At this point I was thinking of starting again and picking eSpain since it seems like a cheap character, but I decided to suck it up and continue on – which was a big mistake.



Stage 7: eCanada. eCanada, ice hockey player… keep those stereotypes rolling! This guy was as mean and tough as a real life hockey player. The pucks took out a good amount of damage as did the hard tackles and the kicks from the ice skates. When you get him down to the end of his health, he throws the gloves off and starts laying into you hard! He was tough but I managed to get him after a few rounds. It seems like that forgot to give him the ability to summon a stampede of moose. Sorry, I shouldn’t be thinking like that – that’s the producers’ job.



Stage 8: eUK. Fancy a spot of tea governor? MidCom really loves their stereotypes. Why didn’t they just have eUK drive a double decker bus? Well he did since it was one of his moves. eUK’s main move however was throwing tea into my face. At first I thought he was throwing steamy diarrhea but the producers were quick to correct me. I’m still not entirely convinced it’s tea looking at it again. Besides the tea and the bus, eUK was easy to predict and beat.



Stage 9: eGreece. Awesome another stereotype… kinda. Well we’ll call it a rip off of a Spartan from 300. I was really disappointed in eGreece since all it was programmed to do was that kick and scream “This! Is! Sparta!” over and over again. He didn’t even use his sword it was like he was just carrying it for looks. I was expecting him to even headbutt me using that helmet but he didn’t do that either. I told the producers that they might want to go back and add some moves to him but they looked at me as if I were insane.

Yeah… that’s ok. I won’t be the one being sued for stereotyping 50% of the characters in this game. After eGreece, it was time for the next stage.



Stage 10: eCroatia!? eCroatia is a white Bruce Lee!? How the HELL did the producers come up with a martial artist for eCroatia!? Throughout the whole match he went flying from one side of the screen to the other with that flying kick. The only time he was down on the ground was when the match started and after I beat the crap out of him.

Why would the producers even make eCroatia a kung-fu star? I asked them that and they said it was “logical” but provided no further logic about it! I told them shouldn’t they give the martial arts expert to eChina or one of the eAsian countries but they ignored me. Well they’ve got martial arts covered they might as well have a boxer in there somewhere…



Stage 11: eTurkey… yes eTurkey is the boxer. I’m surprised that they made eTurkey a boxer. I was more than convinced they were going to have him as one of those guys with the long dresses who spins around. Well eTurkey did spin around in the game with his fists but that was as far as it went. To be honest I think eTurkey looks pretty cool with his awesome hat. I think it might be better than eIndonesia’s hat. Either way, I kicked his ass and went onto the next stage.



Stage 12: eSerbia. Don’t get me started on how much rubbish this match was. eSerbia had an arsenal of weapons. Handguns, machine guns, grenades, rocket launchers you name it! He jumped into a tank at one point and even hopped into a fighter jet! It was rubbish! I thought eSpain’s bull was cheap but this took the cake! I was lucky to get close to him but when I did eSerbia would drop a C4 charge on the ground making me run back.

Lucky for me eIndonesia is really agile and flexible. If I didn’t have the bullet-time Matrix dodge I would have been totally screwed. I was really relieved when I finally beat him – until I hit the next stage…



Stage 13: ePoland. Holy… holy… HOLY crap! This guy was INSANE! He was the strongest character in the game! He would grab onto either your arm or leg and just start slamming you into the ground over and over again. It wasn’t like twice or three times – he kept doing it until you were DEAD! If he didn’t grab you, ePoland would slug you hard with his fists or clothesline you down onto the floor.

I asked the producers why ePoland was so damn strong and they said it was “due to ePoland’s high population in eRepublik, making them the strongest nation.” Well, it was the first logical thing to come out of their mouths all day. After dying a few times, I managed to finally beat ePoland.

The game wasn’t over yet. It was time for the two bosses of the game. I wish the game finished right then. I really, really did.



Stage 14: Lana. WOW!!! That was the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw her! She’s more butch than all of the fighters in the game put together! She even hit harder than ePoland! To make it worse, you couldn’t even scratch her with your hardest hitting move! It was ridiculous!

Lana tossed me around like a rag doll. She backhanded my face. She booted me in the gut. She went as far as punching me between the legs! Don’t get me started on being crashed between those concrete-like breasts of hers. She even hurled insults like “You’re a weak little man!” and “Go train some more weakling!” in a thick eRomanian accent.

There was a trick to beating her which made the fight easy to win. Since Lana has a very “big” upper body, she can’t bend down properly. I took advantage of it by crouching for the rest of the fight and kicked her shins until she went down. The producers were annoyed at me for finding this exploit but I told them that what I did was “logical”. Though I intended on it being a sarcastic comment, the producers seemed to agree with me.

After Lana it was time for the final boss of the game and no doubt everyone knows who that is…



Stage 15: Admin. Good God was he hard to beat! All it would take for him to beat you was just four moves. He had the elements of nature on his side. Admin could set you on fire, make the ground shake, hurl a tsunami at you and even send you flying with a tornado. If you get close to him watch out for his lightning fast punches and kicks that are very hard to block.

What sucked the most as well was the fact I could only hit him in the legs or gut – that was like punching a brick wall. It did very little damage and the only way I could get normal damage off was by hitting him in the face. Considering the fact you can’t block when jumping and you were open to either being set ablaze, being washed away or being blown off into the sunset. Even when he shook the ground you’d get hurt in midair. I’m not even going to try and attempt to explain how that is possible without my brains leaking out of my ears.

Eventually, and I mean after hours of attempts, I finally defeated Admin. It was a long, hard battle but I prevailed! I won! I beat the game! It was a GREAT feeling! There was nothing in the world that could knock the smile off my face… until Admin got back up on his feet and said the following:

“I am but a puppet! I serve a higher power! You are not victorious as of yet, fighter…”

Admin collapsed and exploded into thousands of pieces. Another stage!? After all of that Admin wasn’t the final boss? Who could be the “higher power” controlling Admin? Surely there isn’t anything more powerful than Admin?

And then I saw it…



No… no it couldn’t be. eAntarctica was behind everything all along! I’ve heard people ranting on about how it was the penguins they control the world and not humans. This is proof! This rocks the very foundation of everything I’ve learnt. That… or it had to be the most STUPID boss in a video game that I’ve ever seen!

Final Stage: eAntarctica!? Are you kidding me!? You’ve got from the Admin God to a little penguin!? I was expecting some ultra-smart computer, but a little fat bird that can’t fly? I was ready to kick this guy’s ASS! I was more willing to play this game than every before!



And then I had an urge never to play this game again. As soon as the round started I would get DESTROYED! As soon as the commentator shouted “FIGHT!!!” eAntarctica hit me with a blue laser that froze my ass in its place! You could not avoid this beam at all no matter what you tried! You couldn’t block it and you definitely couldn’t jump it!

It’s not even like the beam starts off from the penguin’s eyes and travels to you. It just appears out of thin air. That’s it. After everything you’ve gone through including wasting hours of your life to defeat Admin, you get destroyed in less than a second by eAntarctica. Good game, good game indeed.

Knowing that there was no way I could do anything, I switched the game off. The producers looked at me with big smiles on their faces and asked me what I thought about it. I didn’t reply to them. I couldn’t be bothered replying to them. Instead they can read my review about the game and allow me to conclude this with a summary…

Graphics: 0. Bad, just bad. For something that is going to be released on the PS3 and X-Box 360, it’s pathetic. I’ve seen better designed games on an old school Nintendo system than this. It looks like it’s been poorly drawn by someone who has no experience with computer graphic programming before.

Soun😛 0. Shocking. The music was appalling and was made with one of those crappy keyboards. The sound effects of the moves and voices were all muffled and poorly done.

Gameplay: 0. It played like an old school fighting game with the only difference being that when you wanted to do the moves you wanted do, it never did. I even remember seeing me hitting the “punch button” and got off a few kicks. What the hell!?

Replay value: -5. If you some how manage to beat eAntarctica, why the **** would you want to put yourself through all of that **** all over again!?

Overall: -10. Terrible… terrible… TERRIBLE!!! I should have just wrote “Terrible game, don’t play” to begin with and that would have been enough but I needed to go into detail as to why it was so bad. I HAD to make you all go through what I went through.

I would love to see what stereotypes they’ll be bringing into eRepublik Fighter II if the game sells enough to warrant a sequel. I can’t wait until I play the Leprechaun representing eIreland or the Samurai that will represent eJapan. I’m looking forward to seeing eIran fly around on a magic carpet or eItaly hurl pizza and pasta at me.

This game will no doubt sell as fast as ice cubes on a freezing day and if it does sell a single copy, I will be very surprised. You’d have more fun playing “I’m going to hit myself over the head with a brick and count how many times it takes for me to become unconscious.” Do me a favour people – just steal this game from the shelf and destroy it. That’s the only way it will be any fun to you.

eRepublik Fighter… what a load of crap!