Does It Suck? - Smosh Food Battle: The Game

 

     For those who don't know who Smosh are, they are a comedic YouTube duo comprised of one Ian Hecox and one Anthony Padilla. They upload videos of them in querky nerd skits referencing movies, video games, and current pop culture on YouTube that millions of people, mostly kids, watch. Since the creation of their channel in 2005, they have garnered more than 14,000,000 subscribers and billions of views. They have their own gaming channel as well, Smosh Games, which millions are subscribed to as well.

     So what do you do when you are one of the top elite of nerdy gamers on the internet and made a business out of it? You further expand your business and make a video game of course. That's exactly what they did. Smosh Food Battle: The Game has been out for a while, and honestly I've been curious about how the game would turn out when I heard about it along with some of their fans. The question is: Does It Suck?

The Rundown

Smosh Food Battle: The Game is an action adventure game. You control Anthony as he goes on a quest to rescue  people from his town from monstrous donuts. You start on a world map as you make progress not only by beating levels, but collecting stars. You will eventually need stars to go on until the ending. You get them by exploring the levels solving puzzles and beating enemies, getting three per level. The game is basically Metroidvania as you will need to acquire and upgrade weapons in order to beat the game. You need weapons to further explore levels and you will need to upgrade them to beat harder enemies. The way you do this is by collecting food.

The upgrade system involves you forging food items and combining them into items like food or clothing. With this being a free and pay app on your phone, unless you can buy your items, unlike me, you will be replaying levels, a lot.

The Controls

The controls of the game are simple. You tap on everything with the touch screen of your phone. When you play as Anthony, you drag your finger on the screen to steer him in whichever direction you want him to go. When fighting enemies, depending on the weapon you have, you tap on the enemy to hit them. I had a bit of a problem with the controls in the first time playing. They seem to be all over the place. I would try to attack an enemy and would often bed up running into them leaving me wide open to get hit. It does take awhile to get use to and work around this. Luckily the enemy AI is simple and you can pick up their attack patters.

Music
Honestly, I'm not really a fan of the music. It's somber and doesn't match the feel of the game. It's almost like you're playing the musical score of Desperate Housewives while fighting giant donuts.

Visuals
For an app game on your phone or iPad, the visuals are nice. Ian and Anthony are drawn is a cartoonish style that is reminiscent of a cell-shaded Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. This matches the over the top style off the game. Playing the game with killer donuts and edible food weaponry is like something out of Looney Tunes. I mean your fighting donuts, would everything be drawn epically like Gears of Wars or something?

Final Verdict
So, does it suck? Not at all. Smosh Food Battle: The Game is pretty decent. I wasn't expecting it to be this good. I'm impressed with how the final product turned out. Even if you are unwilling to fork over some cash for crystals or whatever, replaying the levels doesn't seem like a chore as you can always find something new to explore or find new and interesting ways to destroy donut monsters. The ONLY drawback is how everything works with the touch screen. It's not bad, it just can get get a tad bit annoying sometimes. It can leave you to be resourceful and work around it. Maybe that was Ian and Anthony's plan? What the hell it's free, play it. Smosh Food Battle: The Game gets 3.5 Killer Bearclaws out of 5.

Smosh the Movie: Will it be a Smash or go Smush?

     YouTube viewers Rejoice! It has been announced that the comedic YouTube duo, Smosh (Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox), will be making a full feature movie. According to Variety, Smosh have partnered with Lionsgate who will be deal with global distribution rights for the movie. According to the press release, the movie is being helmed as a Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure of 2014 with a bit of Road Trip thrown in to the mix. The movie will have the duo embarking on a wacky and zany adventure to erase an embarrassing clip from being seen by all, particularly Anthony's crush in the movie, Anna.
     For those who haven't heard of Smosh, they are a part of the YouTube elite. When people say that in order to make money and be famous on YouTube you have to had an account in 2005, they're mostly referring to them. Smosh has made an empire on YouTube. Their main channel consists of them posting comedic videos from the duo that are being watched by over 18 million subscribers. They have broken off to other projects. They have a gaming channel and a channel that produces other content like cartoons.
     Smosh, new feature film adventure is the most recent of the current trend of other YouTube celebrities that are trying to venture off from the site and are trying to make some money in Hollywood. Musical comedic duo Garfunkle and Oats have a TV series on IFC, Grace Helbig is getting a show on E!, and Epic Meal Time has a cooking show on FYI. All of this has started with Fred, a character Lucas Cruikshank created by posting videos of him as the character on YouTube. Cruikshank's Fred character has led to a series on Nickelodeon and a movie, which was also distributed by Lionsgate.
     While it is cool while Smosh have a major movie on their hands, the question is how will it fare to the general public that doesn't sit down in from of a computer to watch videos all day. Honestly, they will have their work cut out for them. They will be presenting their stuff to an almost different format. These will not be the same core audience of people who sit in front of a computer to watch content.  It is known that people who watch videos on YouTube have short attention spans, so the transitioning content from a 3-5 min video to an hour and a half movie will be a big task. A matter of fact it will be really hard. Will their fans actually sit in front of a screen to see the same content for over an hour? You also risk losing the quality of the content in the video like certain jokes by stretching them out and risking them not be funny. Going back to Cruikshank, Fred the Movie was a disaster. It was universally panned by critics and moviegoers and only 7.6 million people saw it.
     I'm not dooming the movie before it even comes out nor am I saying that it can't be done. Again, it will be a hard task. There is a possibility that the Smosh can pull it off and the movie might do well. Regardless if it does well or not, it is fascinating to see Smosh try to do something outside of their comfort zone of posting YouTube videos. Like the other YouTube stars I mentioned earlier, I'm sure they know that their time on YouTube is short. You can't capitalize off of YouTube forever. You have to try other markets and do something bigger and different. It will be interesting to see if they can actually venture off from web content and make a name for themselves in Hollywood.

What are your thoughts on how the movie will fair? Do you thing it will be good or will it be bad?