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Wii Suck @ Video Games - Episode 28 - Story Hour: Adventures

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Jul 24, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.017

TL;DR

Hosts review Story Hour Adventures (Wii 2008), find it boring, decline to rate.

Summary

This is a casual video game review podcast episode about Story Hour Adventures, a Wii game from 2008 that presents interactive storybooks of public domain tales. The hosts find the game boring, educational but not engaging, and question its value proposition compared to traditional parenting activities like reading physical books. They ultimately decline to rate it due to its non-game nature.

Key Claims

  • Story Hour Adventures was released December 9, 2008

    high confidence · Hosts confirm release date based on game packaging

  • The game was developed by Michael Ocean developers and published by Zoo

    high confidence · Read directly from game box by host

  • Story Hour Adventures contains four stories: Aladdin, Paul Bunyan, the three brothers, and Jack and the Beanstalk

    high confidence · Read from back of game box

  • The game has a play-all mode hidden in settings that doesn't require button pressing between pages

    high confidence · Hosts describe discovering this feature during gameplay

  • The game box advertises two different narrators, but hosts could only find one

    high confidence · Hosts discuss discovering discrepancy between box claim and actual game content

  • Story Hour Adventures has no Metacritic reviews (neither critic nor user reviews)

    high confidence · Host looked up Metacritic score and found TBD with no reviews

  • The game targets ages 3-7 according to box rating

    medium confidence · Host mentions seeing rating on box but uncertain of exact number

Notable Quotes

  • “I'd call it more like a babysitter... because you just have to push buttons, it's not like... there's you can't say it's a game”

    Unnamed host @ ~13:00 — Core criticism that the product doesn't qualify as a game

  • “when a parent reads you a book, they're sharing their time with you. That's what makes it important. Not the book.”

    Unnamed host @ ~24:00 — Philosophical critique of the product's value proposition vs. traditional parenting

  • “This is the game that didn't exist... I've never seen nothing like i've never seen where there's not even like something a user like you know Nintendo Life or something like that like this literally didn't exist”

    Host (appears to be Mal) @ ~32:00 — Observation that the game has zero critical or community presence online

  • “i felt dumber as these clicked along i'm just like oh make this stop”

    Unnamed host @ ~20:00 — Strong negative reaction to the game's experience

  • “If you are looking for something to put you to sleep at night, this is the one”

    Host @ ~36:00 — Sarcastic endorsement emphasizing the game's soporific quality

Entities

Story Hour AdventuresgameZoocompanyMichael OceancompanyWe Suck at Video The GamesorganizationMalpersonChris CraftpersonSallypersonBenpersonArielpersonNintendocompanyBeyoncépersonSecret Saturdays Beast of the Fifth Sungame

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.048

0:00
and just like that we are back this is of course we suck at video games big show 28 my name is mal with me as always craft proof sally and this is the end and ariel and ariel This is the only Wii game review podcast that will definitively say that bagged sauerkraut is much better than the jarred stuff. Okay, moving on. I'm trying to think of what... Huh. Yeah.
0:44
We've been trying to save our pennies by shopping other places, the cheaper places. And some stuff matters, some doesn't. Some, you know, a little... Whatever. We're going to save our pennies for all our Wii games that we're not finding at all. Right. I search every day and I do not find any. I'm trying to think what games we got. We did get the Luigi's Mansion 2 HD. And that is, oh, what a fun, glorious game. Gorgeous. So that's a lot of fun. And we also got the game we alluded to last time, the Nintendo Championship. That was a cool package. The package thing has collector pins and gold cartridge. like, it's not actually the Nintendo Gold cartridge, but it's It looks like it, though. It looks like it, yeah. We haven't played that yet.
1:35
I heard it's just kind of like a speedrun minigame stuff. It should be fun. Oh, I like those. Yeah. Like a Wario. Yeah, Wario Land, WarioWare, all those.
1:46
Yeah, it was you know, I don't know. It should be fun. I don't think it's going to be collectible or anything like that. Like any of those pins, you know, you're like okay whatever uh that anything that's marked collectible is not that's that's something to live by right so what uh is that all the games we have that's all the games that's all we got oh we got like what's that war story one and two yeah i don't know you're shenanigans with the nobody does it's a mystery i i order i order uh like those limited run games for the switch and they're really weird like there's a couple different companies that make them and you basically like pre-order so you just you give them money and at some point a game shows up and you're like hey great yeah at some point it could be six months it could be two years there's one outstanding that's like so long ago i i'm starting to think he floated away in the you know balloon with money and he's holding bags with dollars does it say haggis pin bones no no that's another show oh this one just this one just says all those suckers who own switches so uh what now what game are we reviewing this week to this today we are reviewing story our adventure story our adventure like i get most of those words yes story our adventures so i'm trying to think yeah no it's uh we'll cover it let's not let's not go crazy you know okay so So that develops by other ocean developers.
3:21
And the publisher is Zoo. Now, we've actually even done, I think Zoo did that monster truck one that we reviewed. The Zoo does like a million things. But both of these developers, the developer and the publisher, do a ton of stuff. So when was the release date for this one? December 9th, 2008. Do we have a student with us? so that would have been kiyok oh kiyok kiyok was really there for the we stuff i don think she was there for this game when did the week come out December or 2008 right I not sure At one point I had those stats So, Kyok... So, Sarah was here for the first part of 2008. And then Kyok was 2008, 2009. Oh, okay, cool. Alright, so what was the... We're going to set the mood. What was the top song? I have Single Ladies. put a ring on it beyonce never heard of her yes you have so what uh you heard that song you would know never never heard of anyway so what was the uh what was the top movie um i'm not there soul man oh wow see i have four christmases which i was like that sounds weird but then the number two was twilight okay so i must have a different that those are a little They're loosey-goosey on the movie thing. When we try to look up the movies, it's not as crisp as the other games. Maybe just one of us should do the song in the movie. Oh, it's fun because then they're always wrong and different. That's true. It just shows how bad we are at fact-finding. So now we don't have any history with this game. But let's see what the Story Hour Adventures. Boxes? I'd like to see what they say their game is. So I'm going to read the back of the box. story hour adventures is a collection of interactive storybooks those that's in quotes classic public wait wait wait what's in quotes interactive storybooks okay then it says dash classic public domain that's important public domain children's stories retold and recreated on we family members can sit in the living room and read gorgeous fantasy tales enhanced by the magic of the interaction on the Wii. Once a simple casual, once a at once a simple casual game and a parent-led storytelling experience. Story Hour Adventures is beautiful, educational and fun for parents and children alike.
6:08
I have many. Wait for it. It has Aladdin, Paul Bunyan, the three brothers and Jack and the Beanstalk. no okay never mind thank you yes i'll quit quickly on that one so that's what story our adventures says it is um okay i have many many questions sure first do they know what the word interactive means i don't think they do okay do they know what gorgeous means like no we're not gonna this isn't beat up on this this is a weird game yeah this is a very i don't i wouldn't call it a game yeah that's that i'd call it more like a babysitter yeah kind of you're like well yeah i it because you just have to push buttons it's not like yeah there's you can't say it's a game i guess it's i didn't know this this existed this type of thing right now it's not uh egregious to think you know that this is just an entertainment system and you can just it can be a movie player that's what my the ps5 was a dvd player for most of its life then i sold it so i didn't you know because at the time dvds were dvd players were really expensive or blu-ray i forget which one it was doesn't matter um yeah like wow i put it in i was like okay what is this going to be and it's just the four pictures of the four stories and you click it and you can choose between having to push the a button after this guy boomingly reads it each page or you just go to the menu and say play all and they just but at first play all for us wasn actually a play all It just played and then you had to click the pages And then we finally found like tucked away in the settings. Yeah, in the settings area. Where you didn't have to push a button. So these are stories. Yeah. I mean, I like. I guess I never heard the whole Jack and the Beanstalk story. but i also think i heard the mickey mouse version of jack and yeah so mickey and the beanstalk this one uh jack was kind of a felon yes and he ruined lives and i wouldn't say kind of a felon i think he was a b and e just ruining everything stealing things just and he killed the giant uh so anyway all that aside these these public domain stories i was kind of because i was sitting there thinking that was like watching this and like oh you know if you have like a baby like a three-year-old or two-year-old and you go hey here you go and you hand in the wiimote even though you're like if it smashes the wiimote that you're out like 30 or 40 bucks and then like what what is it what like is this any different is this any better than anything else like would a kid like watch this i guess well that's what i was i'm not sure like i can't figure when kids started watching things on YouTube. Oh, YouTube. I don't think it was around. This was before YouTube. No, this was, I don't know. See, YouTube would have been around, but I don't think YouTube has morphed into like being like, hey, look at us, we're like a TV channel now. But I mean, in 2008 was YouTube like... Yeah, it was around, I think, maybe. I don't know, like I couldn't see a mother doing this, but I don't know. Maybe I'm just, I don't know. Like maybe, maybe a kid, maybe... I wouldn't have put $30 down on that. No. Oh my God. Like I would not. No. Like the only, like when a parent reads you a book, they're sharing their time with you. That's what makes it important. Not the book. Children's books are, my God. You know, they're like really just kind of,
10:12
hey, look, there's a cat. Wow, look at that cat. Has a hat. And then, you know, look, he got really fat. Like, you know, like it's just like, it's just like nonsense. you know and then when we're watching these things you're like well this is just nonsense and i want you to read me more storybooks first i'll write them and i'll read it to you i i need it by next show no problem so i don't know like it just i i was just i felt dumber as these clicked along i'm just like oh make this stop like we went we got to the end of one of just to see if it did any like pizzazz or anything. It didn't. It just said, okay. It did not. Okay. Now back to the library. And then it was like it lured you in because it said there were two different narrators and there was one. Yeah. I don't know what that was talking about. Right. I don't know if maybe in the settings. Oh, I bet you if it's a Spanish version or something like that. Like if there was a second language. I didn't see that though. I didn't either. I don't know. Just another lie told to us by Story Hour Adventures and Zoo. I don't know. I really had trouble with this one as far as even like... Putting a rating on it? How are you gonna? I mean, it does what it says it's supposed to do. So, I mean... Was this another five? Just a five out of five? Well, I mean, it's... I don't know. It's not even... I think this is an NA. We don't even rate it. Yeah, I don't think we should rate this one. This is even like, this is the same as a videotape to me. Right. You just put it in. Because now, if you have a kid and you put this on and you're like, okay, I'm going to go do laundry or whatever. And I going to go play casino slots So you give this kid you put the kid down and you say here your blanket here a bottle And they put a cage around it Does it have an age on it I can see one in the box But I thought I remembered seeing one. It was like three to six or three to seven or something like that. I don't know. It's like, I can't even, like, how would you, like, let's say you have a four-year-old. You set it down. Here's your thing. You push start. Well, it's reading through. So maybe the kid's going to, like, look at this thing. Oh, isn't that fun? and then but then like it stops and just sits there and then the kids can just sit there like looking at a screen like the like you mean if it doesn't just automatically turn it yeah turn the pages or no even if you do that at the end of the story it's just gonna stop and then and then the kids are just probably asleep i guess i don't know yeah i was almost asleep i know me too so maybe that's maybe that's what it is maybe it's like here's your bedtime story now go to bed Yeah. And then that we caught on fire. And that was the end of it. So, you know, and this time here, this is all you really need to know. I looked up at this point in the show. I usually I'll read the Metacritic score. Then I dust off of some user reviews because those are pretty much everyone's favorite.
13:05
Metacritic, Story Hour Adventures, TBD. No critic reviews. No user reviews. uh maybe we should write a user this game doesn't exist it's like not even nobody's they sold three copies and maybe i don't know i've never seen nothing like i've never seen where there's not even like something a user like you know nintendo life or something like that like this literally didn't exist in the because there are people out there that like rate all the games Yeah. Right. There you have it. This is the game that didn't exist. So we're going to just do an NA on this one. Sorry, folks. I know this has probably been a boring-ass show because Wowzers. It was a boring-ass game, I'll tell you that much. If you are looking for something to put you to sleep at night, this is the one. If you have a dog that you really like, when you're not at home, maybe you wanted to see stories instead of ripping up pillows, put this on. Maybe it'll work. I don't know.
14:08
That's all I got for you. All right. I think it's time for everyone's favorite where we pick next week's and pretend adventure hours, story hour adventures doesn't exist. And neither does that heavy microphone thump.
14:25
All right. The Hello Kitty chopsticks have spoken and that means I picked the secret Saturday's Beast of the Fifth Son. What? I have no idea what any of those words together mean. Saturdays. It's the Secret Saturdays Beast of the Fifth Sun. Wow. So if that is your favorite game of all time and you want to tell us all about how awesome it is, how can they reach us Crafter Sally? We, W-I-I, suck at video games at gmail.com So we suck at video games at gmail.com W-I-I-S-U-C-K at video games. I'll put a link in the show notes because God knows that is like the worst name of ever. Alright, anything else before we wrap this show up? Could you say it one more time? The Secret Saturday's Beast of the Sun? Beast of the Fifth Sun. The Secret Saturday's Beast of the Fifth Sun. That's a lot of words right there. Well, we've never heard of it before, so we have Hey, don't give away the secret for next show.
15:34
Thanks for listening, everyone. this has been We Suck at Video Games Big Show 28. We'll see you next time for the fifth son of Saturday. Secrets of the Son. Sure. Why not?
15:48
That's it, man. Game over, man. Game over.