The Crazy-Ass Group Game: The Game, A Game With Locomotives

The Crazy-Ass Group Game: The Game, A Game with Locomotives (or simply just The Crazy-Ass Group) is a platform RPG third-person shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Epic Games and Team6 Game Studios and published by Ubisoft. It is based on the HBO Max television series, The Crazy-Ass Group Show: The Series, Television Presentation. The game was initially released in North America on February 26, 2021, March 2, 2021 in Europe, and March 5, 2021 in Japan.

Plot
Set in present day, two scientists named Jimmy Neutron and Mr. Know It Owl invents a machine that can travel through different dimensions and universes. Mario, Luigi, Sonic, Tails, Toad, Princess Peach, Pig, Rat, Peep, Quack, Chirp, SpongeBob, Patrick, and many others are excited of traveling to an alternate reality, but first they need to check if they got everything they need to be ready. While traveling in the machine, Luigi clumsily presses one of the buttons that caused the machine to malfunction, leading them to a weird universe. Now that the machine is destroyed, they'll have to now use the controller that Rat luckily brought, which can also travel through time. Things start to get messy, as they get threatened at the certain universes and time periods they're on. A villain named Sucko, who is a powerful and ruthless electric spike tries to keep the gang stuck in the dangerous universe forever by destroying the controller and pausing time. It's up to you to defeat Sucko before it's late.

Why It Sucks
[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]
 * 1) The game suffered through development hell as it was first announced in 2001, 20 whole years prior to this game's actual release. It was originally going to be released for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox by Activision, but somehow got temporarily shelved in 2003 thanks to executive meddling, until the project was revived in 2008 by Ubisoft. The game took WAY TOO LONG in development with multiple delays in production until it was finally released for various consoles including Steam in 2021, and it was no surprise the way the game eventually turned out.
 * 2) Although the plot isn't too bad in particular and is actually an interesting concept, most of the time feels a bit too similar to a Family Guy episode, "Road to the Multiverse", making feel somewhat unoriginal, but the execution makes it even worse.
 * 3) The game costed $50.99 at launch for console releases (making it overpriced), while the Steam version costed a mere $25.
 * 4) Just like the TV series, a lot of the characters in this game still act very rude and pretty out-of-character compared to their traditional counterparts, to the point where they're unlikable and annoying, still remaining their flanderazation.
 * 5) *Mario acts like an Italian stereotype as usual who is often obsessed with pizza and even scolded his brother Luigi in one cutscene for something petty (simply for dropping his leftover spaghetti). At least he isn't as bad as Wario.
 * 6) *Luigi is still a clumsy idiot who is overly obsessed with spaghetti, acts racist towards Floridians, Texans, and Californians (since they aren't Brooklyn, in his perspective) and annoys other characters (like Ren, Rat, Garfield and Babs Bunny) too much.
 * 7) *Wario has by far the worst flanderization out of all the other characters, probably even worse than his flanderization in the TV series, as he's now nothing more than an outright edgy savage who farts at people's face for no reason whatsoever and even tried to kill Toad for refusing to help him with his contract. Even Bucky Katt and Ren Höek are less callous compared to him.
 * 8) *Waluigi is basically just as much of an annoying idiot as Luigi who treats tacos as if it was a religion.
 * 9) *Princess Peach's characterization is very inconsistent. While she normally still a naïve yet nice character who treats Mario very well and even tried to save him in one cutscene, sometimes, she acts pretty snooty and arrogant.
 * 10) *Toad, while likable, is still practically nothing more than the game's punching bag.
 * 11) *Sonic is also poorly portrayed in this game, as he is basically an annoying "tries-to-hard-to-be-rad" type of character and act pretty rowdy in front of Mario (his rival/frenemy) as well as other mh:awesomegames:Nintendo characters.
 * 12) *Amy is, once again, a sulky coward who obsessed with Sonic that she refuses to help others but him. At least until the end, but again, still. She also acts very hip and trendy that in one cutscene, she did a cringeworthy mh:rottenwebsites:Tik Tok video of her dancing to "Roses" by SAINt JHN and Imanbek, in inhumane ways a la the infamous GrubHub commercial.
 * 13) *Knuckles, although better than in the TV series, is your generic "bully because he's a bully" type of character who won't stop harassing his teammates.
 * 14) *Ness, much like his behavior in the TV Series, acts like a Russian Stereotype, even though he was never conformed to be Russian by Nintendo.
 * 15) *Nicole Watterson, much like her portrayal in the TV series, is a enraged volcano girl that mostly gets angry at very little things.
 * 16) *Alisa Bosconovitch became a drug addict who smokes for most of the time.
 * 17) *Ren Höek, while still a bit better than how he was portrayed in mh:terribletvshows:Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon, still acts like a ruthless jerk who constantly tricks Stimpy into doing some bad and pins the blame on others for his wrong doings, such as Carl Wheezer.
 * 18) *Jon Arbuckle still remains his flanderization from the TV series, Mary's Perfect Adventure: The Movie, and especially mh:terribletvshows:The Garfield Show, but mixed in a blender.
 * 19) *Dannan O'Mallard is protrayed as an ungrateful "know-it-all" moronic fool who almost never appreciates other people's gift and yells too much for petty reasons.
 * 20) *Bucky Katt, although slightly better than his Mary's Perfect Adventure: The Movie incarnation like in the TV series, is still a grump who lacks any sense of humor and barely smiles.
 * 21) *Sheen Estevez is portrayed as an overly idiotic comic relief who almost has no purpose to the game whatsoever other than making cringeworthy jokes, such as the infamous "What do you call a ventriloquist puppet with an Hungarian accent. The name's Dummy Thicc to you!" joke.
 * 22) *Blue Yoshi almost NEVER SHUTS UP IN THE GAME.
 * 23) *The Crocs (Larry, Burt and Bob) became even more ferocious towards Zebra whenever he isn't looking (although the latter's aware of it), and pretends to be nice to him by giving dangerous gifts, just to devour him. Even Larry's wife, Patty is no better than these three.
 * 24) *Grimmy the Dog, although likable, is still a childish idiot and threats his roommate, Attila, like his chew toy.
 * 25) *Attila the Cat, while also likable, acts pretty snooty and haughty in most areas, similar to Chirp once again.
 * 26) *Quack the Duck, nowhere as bad as Wario this time, is mainly portrayed as a self-esteem jerk who doesn't appreciate people helping him and bosses his team around.
 * 27) *Patrick Star is basically still portrayed as a immature moron who's as dumb as a bag of rocks, and makes too much corny jokes like Sheen. Despite this, he does have some funny moments unlike that character.
 * 28) * Prairie Dawn is mainly portrayed as an arrogant Mary Sue who thinks that everything is perfect, without even realizing the bad things happening around her and the team. She's also a way too easy character to play as she never loses a health-bar from getting hit by enemies a lot. I mean, come on... That's the whole point of health-bars!
 * 29) *Naruto and Paddington are now Gary Stus and only serve as a love interest for Amity
 * 30) **Speaking of Amity, she is now a immature brat who whines when nothing goes her way.
 * 31) *The Teen Titans (Teen Titans GO!) felt like forced minor antagonists. Not to mention, they barley even appear in the game itself.
 * 32) Speaking of which, some of the characters from the television series don't appear in this game for some reason, such as Arlene, Mac Manc McManx, Foodar, Chubby Hugs, The Banana Splits, Paula, Jeff, Poo, Felicia, Ralph, Chilly Willy, Mr. Horse and Silver the Hedgehog.
 * 33) The title not only sounds astoundingly stupid, but is also somewhat misleading because it mentions "A Game with Locomotives" despite in the actual game, there are barely any locomotives other than just plain trains and subway rails.
 * 34) The game was originally full of microtransactions, especially in the Steam version, with many special items, powers, and clothing at the shop to be used in the game costing at a range of $45 to an absurd maximum of $150! Luckily, they were removed shortly after receiving backlash from gamers, and now you would only need to pay with in-game tokens (the ones you collect during gameplay and earn after completing a stage) to get the items.
 * 35) Although the controls are okay for the most part, for some of the characters you play, it'll feel weird and clunky at times, showing inconsistency to the controls.
 * 36) *For example, if you play Wario and tilt the analog stick, your character will turn 75 degrees from where he is and moving him will feel like as if Wario is drunk or something.
 * 37) *For Quack, if you press X in your PlayStation 4 & 5 controller (or B for Nintendo Switch and A for Xbox One/Xbox Series X and S), your character will abruptly jump-fly like Superman (especially if you don't have a special item made for flying), causing him to slam into random areas, including enemies and obstacles. This is also quite odd, considering the fact that Quack actually can't fly because he doesn't even have wings, as his original incarnation shows!
 * 38) Some of the enemies in this game are very weak, such as the yellow-tailed goblins, in which if you hit them just once, they instantly die.
 * 39) On the other hand, most of the enemies take far too many hits to kill (especially by punches and kicks), unless you use special weapons and gadgets to eradicate them even faster, however, such as the ACME Ray Blaster D2.
 * 40) The Microsoft Windows (Microsoft Store) version is widely considered to be worst port out of all the other ports, due to it being filled with glitches and bugs, terrible physics, sub-par controls and camera and sometimes, will even crash out of the blue.
 * 41) Speaking of which, some of the stages has a few glitches in the console versions, especially objects like cars floating in the air for no reason.
 * 42) Overuse of product placement, in which honorable mentions go to Bluetooth, mh:rottenwebsites:Tik Tok, YouTube, Ajinomoto, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Ubisoft (the company who published this game), Cartoon Network, Paramount+ (in which isn't even out yet), Funimation, Doritos, mh:awesomegames:Nintendo, mh:awesomegames:Sega, Discord, Big Hit Entertainment, McDonald's and Vevo.
 * 43) *There's even a bunch of somewhat pointless and cringeworthy references to certain brands and celebrities, such as Will Smith, Carl's Jr, Kanye West, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, Bob Camp, Juicy Juice, Le Monke, Doja Cat, J. Balvin, mh:awfulmovies:Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa and the GrubHub commercial.
 * 44) Although the game's soundtrack is mostly decent, some of the songs are either downright awful or just plain annoying, including Luigi and Waluigi's infamous "The Fatty Ass Rap" song.
 * 45) *Speaking of the song, "The Fatty Ass Rap" is basically to show prejudice towards overweight people like Wario, Garfield, Pig, Richard Watterson, Pokey Minch, Motu, and Quack for example, with a lot of slurs (albeit most of them are censored) being thrown into the song, including fat-ass, pig and pug-fugly, which is very inappropriate (even for a T-rated game), insulting and counts as fat-shaming.
 * 46) Cringeworthy and laughable dialogue, such as the aforementioned "The name's Dummy Thicc to you!" and "Me got a lawyer!"
 * 47) The game sometimes suffer from very bad framerate with multiple frame drops, especially on the Microsoft Windows, Linux and Nintendo Switch versions.
 * 48) Most of the level designs are pretty hit-or-miss, since they tend to range from well-done and structured to pretty messy and convoluted, in which for some stages, you can't seem to get where you're going during gameplay.
 * 49) *One of the most stupidest stages in this game is "Rapsittie Street, 2002", where everyone is literally blocky characters a la Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa, and due to the level's nature, there are often glitches everywhere as well as the characters moving very jerky.
 * 50) The infamous cutscene where Wario and Knuckles literally blow up Italy and even North Korea.  We really don't need to explain this.
 * 51) The Sr. Goblin and Killer Whale boss battles were very lackluster, as these villains were a bit too easy to defeat.

Redeeming Qualities
[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]
 * 1) The special items, powers, and clothing from the shop are pretty cool-looking and can be useful.
 * 2) Some of the characters are still likable or has improved from their original counterparts such as Mr. Know-It-Owl, Jimmy Neutron, Carl Wheezer, Garfield, Nermal, Odie, Tails, Shadow the Hedgehog, Stimpy, George Liquor, Piggy Winks, William (from Violette1st), Lucy (from Violette1st), PewDiePie, Pig, Rat, Goat, Zebra, Satchel Pooch, SpongeBob, Sandy Cheeks, Peep, Chirp, Banjo, Kazooie, The Powerpuff Girls, Spyro, Buster Bunny, Babs Bunny, Plucky, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yakko, Wakko, Dot, etc.
 * 3) *Even a few flanderized characters, such as Mario, Toad, Grimmy, Attila and Patrick are still likable and nowhere as bad as the other flanderized characters.
 * 4) *While many of the villains are generic and poorly-written, Sucko, the game's main villain, is actually a very threatening and awesome villain.
 * 5) Fairly decent gameplay with top-notch graphics, aside from framerate errors and shoddy controls for some characters.
 * 6) The voice acting performances are actually pretty good, which many voice actor reprising their roles of their characters such as Frank Welker as Garfield.
 * 7) The cutscenes are fluidly animated, and matches the character's art style very well. This should be noticeable that the cutscenes were animated by Rough Draft Korea, Tonic DNA and Snipple Animation Stuidos.
 * 8) As mentioned in WIS#6, at least the microtransactions were removed shortly after backlash, thus making the tokens actually useful.
 * 9) In relation with WIS#16, the level designs are decent-looking for most stages, and the poorly-done stages can be amusing to some people (as a "so bad, it's good" kind of way).
 * 10) Most of the boss battles are actually worthy playing, such as the Sucko battle near the end of the game.
 * 11) Decent soundtrack, with actually good songs such as "Promise" by Donghyun and Cya, "Physical" by Dua Lipa and "Time to Get Over the Fence" by Sonic, Ren, Stimpy, Yakko, Chirp, Toad and Mario.
 * 12) A few funny moments from here to there, especially the fourth wall breaks.
 * 13) At least it's mostly faithful to the original series.
 * 14) The crossover DLC with Miraheze: The Game is surprisingly really good, with a great story, and multiple improvements. Some even say that the game is only worth it just for that DLC specifically!

Dialogue from the Game
Sheen Estevez: What do you call a ventriloquist puppet with an Hungarian accent? The name's Dummy Thicc to you!

Garfield: Welp, our demension-traveling machine is destroyed. Mario: Luigi, you should've more careful, or else we would've been dead! Luigi: *groan* Lucy: It's okay, Luigi. You can take this dollar and you could buy yourself something nice.

Amy: Like, ya! I'm like the queen of Tik Tok!"

Dot: We gotta rescue these people from these trolls and get out of this universe. PewDiePie: Well, I got a pickaxe. William: I got a shield and a loaded up pistol. Mario: I got power mushrooms! Larry: Me got a lawyer!

Ren Höek: Woah... That was amazing. Goat: Ha! Yeah! Amazingly unlawful. William: Any scrub who blows up a country is a scrub. Here comes controversy. Wario: SHUT IT, KID! THAT COUNTRY IS NEXT!!! Nicole Watterson: You better not Blow up Elmore, or else… OH! YOU KNOW IT! YOU ARE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE! Chirp: *gasp* Oh no... You don't mean-

Stimpy: A remote? How is a TV remote gonna take us anywhere, Ren? Ren Höek: It's not just any TV remote, eediot. It's a remote that's a replacement for that machine. Toad: Yeah, this thing sure does come in handy. I'm even hoping for this to take us to the Sega universe. Sonic: *smiles* Mario: Uh...

Patrick: Oh look, a gift shop. Take me there!!!

Mario: You know what they say, all toasters toast toast!

Banjo: Hey Kazooie, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? Kazooie: Your mom!!!

Muscle Man: You know who else else like to order Pizza Hut? My mo- Loona: We don't have time for your jokes, Muscle Man!

Conker: Is this the part where they are going to throw in random lootboxes? Blossom: Yes. Conker: Damn it!! Why did it have to be bloddy lootboxes?!?''' Gruntilda: Those lootboxes I cannot stand, they charge you a penny to ten grand!!! Diddy Kong: They pulled an EA for goodness sake! Nicole Watterson: Wait, it costs 200$ Dollars? WHAT?! Ness: This is more expensive than the Tretyakov Gallery Photo Album! Penny Proud: I would be worse if Wizard Kelly took over the triple AAA game industry.

Dixie Kong: *groan* Why do we feel robotic. Nicole Watterson: Wait, so my body is moving poorly animated based on some Shitty movie? WHAT THE FUCK!!!!! PewDiePie: By god, what the hell is this!? Ness: Eww… this is even worse than my Smash 64 Model! Carl Wheezer: I think this is Rapsittie Street... see that sign over there? SpongeBob: Dear player, If you own a copy of this movie, I recommended you find a nice place to incinerate it... Oh, you don't have it? Well, good!

Conker: Puta Madre Banjo, el comunismo no funciona! UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Reception
While The Crazy-Ass Group Game: The Game, A Game with Locomotives received mixed reviews from critics, the game mostly received mixed-to-negative reviews from users, criticizing its execution, humor, launch price, reliance on microtransactions (initially) and controls, while the cutscenes and graphics received some praise.

IGN gave the game a 5.5/10, saying "The Crazy-Ass Group Game: The Game, A Game with Locomotives mostly seems promising with its story and techniques, but still needs a little more work with its consistencies, as it felt all over-the-place at times."

Trivia
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
 * As mentioned in WIS#1, the game was first announced in 2001 and was originally going to be released for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2 and mh:awesomegames:Xbox by Activision, running via Vicarious Visions Alchemy. At first, it was originally going to be called "Crossover Universe", based on the 1999-2005 animated sitcom, A Totally Normal World. However, as the developers and the team wrote the story and drew level designs for the game, Activision told the team to scrap the level designs and start from scratch, as they were displeased with it. In 2003, the game was shelved due to development problems and executive meddling from the company until the project was eventually revived in 2008 by Ubisoft, but was retooled. The development took about 12 YEARS to complete and during it, the game was later retooled again, in order to collide with the then-upcoming The Crazy-Ass Group Show, a spiritual successor to A Totally Normal World. The game was finally released in 2021, with no-so-good results.
 * The games title was originally just The Crazy-Ass Group Game: The Game, The Video Game instead of The Crazy-Ass Group Game: The Game, A Game with Locomotives