Welcome to the first instalment in Weird Games Found in a Box at MMGN, where I go through the misc boxes of "stuff" in the corner at MMGN HQ to find strange games we forgot existed to give you an insight into just how awful they are after 10 minutes of gameplay.
This one was still in shrink wrap, so who knows, there might even be a few gems that were incorrectly catapulted into the discard pile but it's highly unlikely.
Today, we have a game that appears to be called "Deepak Chopra's Leela - Body. Mind. Spirit. Play." It's for the Nintendo Wii, yay.
Okay...
What's it About?
It's a meditation game that makes use of the Wii Remote. I believe it was released on the Xbox 360 with Kinect first, which makes a lot more sense.
It promises to use the Wii Remote to "instil a sense of balance and harmony to every day life."
Who's to Blame?
THQ brought us this monstrosity, and of course, Deepak Chopra, a 65-year-old physician and writer who for some reason decided to dabble in video games.
He's written something like 19 New York Times best-sellers and claims that through reversing the aging of the mind, you'll totally live until 120.
The Gameplay
After 10 minutes of gameplay with Deepak Chopra's Leela I was bored as shit. Most of that time was spent in tutorial and making my Mandala. Why I needed this wasn't explained. It was a slow and painful 10 minutes.
After listening to Deepak speak very slowly, I had to spin a circle to plant and water a seed that was taking its sweet time and then move a tree towards sunlight. Then, once I was done, I did it again!
I suspect its painfully slow pace was a result of the whole meditation thing, but it was just boring and frustratingly slow. It certainly didn't help me relax, and the gameplay itself was more suited to a free iPad game than a full priced Wii title -- especially since the motion controls didn't respond half of the time.
Score on the Superman-64-O-Meter
Verdict: 15/42 Superman 64s
Pretty shit, but less broken than Superman 64.
The Ratings System
We've devised a new ratings system to help rank Weird Games Found in a Box at MMGN. It has very little consistency, and makes even less sense, but it's a score everyone should understand because I say so.
The rules are simple: I may only play a game for 10 minutes. As soon as I start playing, I begin the timer. When it hits 10 minutes, I stop playing, and score it on the Superman-64-O-meter.
The worst score on this scale is 42. If a game were to ever score a 42/42, not only would it be considerably worse than Superman 64 or the ET game, but the world would likely have imploded upon its release.
21/42 is equally as bad as Superman 64. In this case, 15 means it isn't anywhere near the monstrosity that was Superman 64, but is still pretty shit.
A 7 is an okay game, while a -11 is a great game that you should totally play.
Enjoy the system!
By Ben Salter