This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.

Editor’s note: As one episode of Game Club comes to a semi-disturbing close, another begins. It’s the cycle of life. -Demian

Welcome back to the Bitmob Game Club!

In this final entry of the Sonny Edition, we find Aaron, Travis, and Chris at their wit’s end. Which is great for us because it only makes what they have to say all the more hilarious.

Hit the jump to find out more about Aaron’s possible brain damage, Travis’ reverence for Bill Cosby’s Ghost Dad, and Chris’ high school sex education.

 

Bitmob Game Club is a community collaboration where the Club picks a (typically free) game, and a group of Bitmobbers play it. After playing a specific section of the game, the contributors write about it, Bitmob style (read: any way they want). We collect all of the stories for each section in one post, allowing the whole community to participate!

In this episode of Game Club, the contributors play through Sonny and Sonny 2, a couple of Flash games created by developer Krin for Armor Games. Also check out previous episodes one, two, and three.

Want to follow along? Click here to play on Armor Games’ website. Don’t confuse it with the sequel, and make sure you register an Armor account in order to save your progress. (Don’t worry, they don’t spam your e-mail or anything.)

Want to join the game club? Shoot an e-mail to: jamesderosa[at]sophistgames[dot]com. Subject: Bitmob Game Club.

When it’s time for a new edition, we’ll select four people at random to participate. Be sure that you can commit the time and effort it takes before sending the e-mail; otherwise, you get the Darnell Boot-O-Doom!

Remember: Each contributor worked hard playing and writing about the game — give them feedback!

On with the stories!

Sonny Edition Contributor: Aaron Rivers

Aaron is currently the dictator of the pan-Caribbean island of Tropico. He began his rise to power as a man of strong ideals and uncompromising vision. In the harsh climate of the real world, the Phillies lost the World Series, and because of this he was unable to liberate a TV.

SEPTA, Philadelphia’s “public” (read: privately owned) transit system, has decided to go on strike, causing him to question why, with all the corruption and misappropriation of funding, don’t people hide in the jungle and attack government buildings like they do in the beautiful island nation of Tropico? Are they afraid that mayor Michael Nutter is going to condemn them as heretics?

Aaron is currently playing Tropico 3 and Eternal Darkness.

Sonny 2

Zone 4 — Labyrinth: Tunnel of Illusions

Much like the train level in the last edition, Zone 4 doesn’t really add anything to the overall experience other then more grinding and the occasional gear improvements. The enemy types are disjointed, random, and generally don’t make a lick of sense, even when compared to the bat-shit-crazy enemies previously encountered.

The labyrinth is not much of a labyrinth at all; like every level of Sonny, it’s a straight line. This leads me to believe that the “labyrinth” is a metaphor: a metaphor for the convoluted narrative that seems to permeate every inch of this game. It has become so confusing that I don’t even question the rationale for me having to fight a female ninja that turns into a magic fox. I’m at a point in this experience where things like that almost makes a strange, loose sort of sense.

I think Sonny may have done some serious damage to my neocortex.

An informative and relevant flow chart about the neocortex and birthing.

While I have to agree with Chris that Sonny is exponentially better when you have three characters, I was constantly left wanting more variety in the combat. How about introducing area of effect spells or abilities?

Zone 5 — Hew: The Dystopia

See how they flipped that on you? Calling it the Utopia the whole time, then when you get there, it’s a dystopia…ugh.

First of all, I have to say that I sighed audibly when I saw that the shop, called Pawn Shop, where you buy your last run of gear, had a lit sign with a burned out “a.” Really guys? What’s down the street from the “Pwn Shop”? A really good place for ribs named OMGWTFBBQ? Maybe a cell phone store called TTYL? Or, perhaps, a head shop just called Pr0n?

Pwned!

Do you see what this game is making me do? I just wrote pwned in an actual write-up of a game. Fuck! Twice!

At the end of the tunnel, which in no way resembles a labyrinth, Sonny and his posse meet some miners who are from Utopia (or Dystopia, or whatever). These miners were duped into believing that the ZPCI were protecting them from the non-existent zombie threat. When the miners learn that not all zombies are brain-eating sociopaths, they get pissed.

You see, these miners apparently have a lot of political sway with the common folk of Hew. (Hew is the real name of Utopia, and the game fails to mention this until you get there.) So, everyone decides to go all revolutionary on the mayor because he was in league with the ZPCI — I guess.

Felicity’s dramatic entrance at the beginning of the game. She does stuff, then joins your team.

You also meet back up with Felicity. She is that zombie ninja chick — who none of us really bothered to mention — that enjoys throwing knives into Veradux’s head. Instead of allowing you to field four characters in battle, however, you are forced to choose a party of three. I decided to use Felicity because Roald is a terrorist, and with all the revolution going on, I was afraid that might run off full speed into a market with a bomb strapped to his chest at any time.

After beating the last boss, you are presented with a short, vague cinema which shows the ZPCI in some kind of underground bunker discussing what they/re going to do now that the people have taken over Hew. Some zealous, can-do lieutenant proposes nuking the town, but an overly obvious last boss denies him. He says they are going to use “the Seed” instead. Whatever the fuck that means.

All I know is that this game ends on a cliffhanger — if you really want to call it that — and that I need to schedule an appointment to get a CAT scan to see if this game has had any permanent effect on my brain.

Sonny Edition Contributor: Travis McReynolds


Travis McReynolds wants to be your sledgehammer. Why don’t you call his name?

He’s currently playing Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony, and is about to begin playing through Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem for the umpteenth time.

After going back and reading everyone’s entries for our last three Game Club posts, I definitely see why readers might think Sonny is a crappy game. It isn’t. There are many pluses and minuses to the experience, but ultimately I came away enjoying the game — even after repeatedly replaying certain stages for the sake of my write-ups.

The combat, leveling, and ability trees in both games are solid for a pick-up-and-play-style title, and downright impressive when you consider the browser-based medium. I’ve enjoyed padding my team’s stats and collecting rare inventory items.

If you like a turn-based RPG, then I highly recommend Sonny next time you’re stuck at the office/library/airport etc. If you take a look at what everyone has written thus far, you’ll find that, in terms of gameplay, we’re describing a surprisingly deep RPG.

Let me drive that last bit home: in terms of gameplay. The story of Sonny and Sonny 2 is the most convoluted, poorly told story I’ve ever heard — not quite a zombie movie ripoff, not quite a social commentary, but 100% rambling bullshit.

Let me put it this way: have you ever seen the movie Ghost Dad? It’s so poorly written, acted, and directed that it loops around from complete shit back to pure gold. The ridiculous premise is taken seriously enough that it comes off as absurd and hilarious. (And Bill Cosby is in it.)

Sonny doesn’t benefit from this “loop around” effect, which means one of two things. Either the story isn’t bad enough to become good again or it’s so bad that it looped around twice (or more) and landed back on the bad side. Guess which option I’d pick.

The penultimate level is an abandoned tunnel your party of misfits lands in after wrecking their sweet train. Fortunately, the old guy that sat on the train for what may have been years has miraculously survived the crash. On top of that, the impact must have magically upgraded the equipment he has to sell you.

I know I’m nitpicking, but having witnessed what the train salesman has been able to do bearing in mind the conditions he’s survived, well, I’d say he’d make an incredible final boss.

The tunnel level is my favorite of either of the Sonny games because of the foes you battle. As the plot continues to thin, poisonous gas clouds the area, and you go up against Kafka’s roach-esque Gregor and the evil bunny from Monty Python’s Holy Grail. These instances are funny, but the references are the type you’d be introduced to in your sophomore year of high school. Still, I appreciate this approach over the boiler-plate melodrama typical to most of Sonny’s cutscenes.

The tracks lead our heroes to the city of Hew — once known as a utopia, now identified by the map screen as a dystopia. See also: the opposite of subtle.

In the city, a group of workers is rising up against the mayor (mayors only have power, political or otherwise, in video games and cartoons). Being that you haven’t really had a reason to progress thus far, Sonny decides to help overthrow The Man “just because.” You mow down some soldiers, guards, and androids, and after all of this work, you finally get to face your sworn-enemy arch-nemesis of the last ten minutes.

The final boss battle is disappointing to say the least. In spite of the deep combat options and ability tree, the game has been super easy. The mayor of Hew fights about as well as an actual mayor would, not counting Mayor Mike Haggar, of course.

My team of over-leveled super men knocked him out in five turns. Unlike the first Sonny, there’s no real continued play option, but I’m not complaining — the last entry’s epilogue came across as pretty tacked on.

One thing I forgot to mention was the addition of a fourth team mate you can swap in on the last level. I forgot to mention her because she comes to you about a dozen levels below your weakest character. I don’t know who thought it’d be a good idea to throw in a new character so late in the game, but I’m willing to bet they moonlight as a writer for TV’s Lost.

I know it seems counter-intuitive, but I recommend this game. Just bear in mind that I played while stuck at work with the sound muted, and that I responded to e-mails during cut-scenes. If you like a good turn-based RPG you should definitely take a couple of hours and play through. If you don’t like RPGs, may I suggest a rousing game of Minesweeper?

Regardless of which applies to you, I recommend everyone go back and watch Ghost Dad again. It’s somehow only managed to get better with age.

And thanks, James, for putting this together. I had a lot of fun!

Sonny Edition Contributor: Chris Davidson

On the side, Chris has been learning to play drums and ping pong, but not at the same time — as fucking bad ass as that would be.

Chris is playing and enjoying Red Faction: Guerrilla for PS3. Smashing shit with a hammer never stops feeling awesome.

I’m quickly running out of things to talk about with Sonny. The gameplay hasn’t really changed, so the only thing new I can talk about is the plot.

Luckily, I’ve developed a brilliant strategy to artificially lengthen my article: random and obscure tangents! If I use a number in superscript, that means you should refer to the end of my piece for more amazing and revealing information to better flesh out my references1. Let me know how it works out.

I’m curious to see what my fellow Game “Clubbers”2 have to say, but Sonny and I are cool now. The plot is still terrible, but it’s a tolerable kind of terrible. I feel as though they’ve upgraded to “B-movie plot” from “high-school-home-video-for-health-class plot.” (Go safe sex awareness!3) There’s enough going on with the story that I was curious as to was going to happen next, even if what comes next was invariably stupid.

¡Un poster por mejor educación de sexo!

Chapter 4 starts off in a tunnel, and I completely missed out on why the train disappeared. The enemies in this section make even less sense than in previous ones, and there is no plot development until the end. You mostly fight cockroaches, bunny rabbits, and wolves, which is cool with me — I’m known for beating up poor, defenseless animals. The end of Chapter 4 can be summed up pretty easily: Some construction workers find one of their friends/relatives killed, and decide to overthrow the mayor5.

Sonny and friends finally reach Hew, and it’s a pretty standard place. Despite being a utopia, it looks awfully similar to the end of Chapter 2. On the other hand, if there’s one thing I can’t knock this game for, it’s the number of art assets. This game has a lot of unique enemy and armor models, and the sheer fact that every piece of armor has its own unique art and appears on the character when equipped is pretty damned impressive7.

I flew through these chapters in less time than a hemophiliac football game8. The end includes a decent but forgettable boss, and a cliffhanger cut-scene about “the Seed.” The Seed was weighed against a nuclear strike option by some people and was determined to be more effective. Did I mention I still have no fucking idea what’s going on?

Well, that concludes the Game Club on Sonny. I had fun, and I hope you did too! It seems a lot of people hated this game10, but I like to think that I had fun times playing hammered out of my mind.

Intoxication just makes things better11, and if you leave this Game Club edition with anything, I think it should be that. I hope you enjoyed my stuff and look forward to more shit from me12!

1. Congratulations! You’ve figured out how this works.

2. Does Game Clubber refer to a person who smashes games with a club, or a person who participates in a game club? No one knows! That’s the beauty of made up words and poor grammar!

3. I didn’t read the syllabus for the safe-sex awareness video project, so I gave a quick guide to self defense tips in the sack4.

4. Yes, the donkey punch did originate as a safe-sex self defense technique.

5. I’ve seen people do worse for stupider reasons6.

6. I love college.

7. Seriously, it is impressive!

8. On my resume, under the “Titles and Awards” section, directly after “Sex God”9, but right before “Nobel Super Awesome Person Prize,” it says: “Master of Analogies.” Now you know why.

9. This one is self-proclaimed, but my last girlfriend went lesbian after breaking up with me, and I’m pretty sure it’s because no man can quite live up or compare. Therefore I think it’s totally justified to include it on my resume.

10. They had very good reasons.

11. Relationship troubles, terrible video games, good video games, problems in general, and depression all fall into this category.

12. Did you have fun13?

13. I had fun14.

14. Thirteen is my lucky number, so I’m only going to conclude on 13 footnotes15.

15. Fuck.