CyberPlanet Interactive

It's time to look at weird games on the Internet again. This time, we're looking at a developer of ShovelWare games: CyberPlanet Interactive. They've made everything from preschool learning games to cooking mama ripoffs.

There's no way they got permission to use Ultraman.

There is currently no available footage available on the webs of Ultraman HappyStudy, and aside from that, CyberPlanet has stayed mostly on the same, safe path of other shovelware developers: making rip-offs of other games. There are a few notable exceptions, which is why this is even being written in the first place.

The first exception is Army Rescue, which looks like a new kind of terrible the world isn't ready for. I can barely tell what's going on from the video, but the game has Princess Peach in it, and you have to move boats.

According to the CPIgames site's description:

- Help parachute soldiers jumping from the plane into the boats by cutting the ropes and destroying obstacles.
- Collect money to upgrade boats, aiecrafts and various weapons.
- 2 Single-player mode - Story mode and Survival mode; and a multi-player mode - Battle mode.

That sounds delightful. And no, aiecrafts is not my typo. It seems like Army Rescue is a horrifying hybrid of several iPhone games, but now available for 20 dollars on your Wii.

Another exception would be Iron Chef, which may sound ambiguously legal. In fact, the game wasn't legally released in the US, much like some really old Bible-inspired NES games that everyone is familiar with.

Unlike the real Iron Chef, the game is an action platformer, and looks like a really bad idea from every angle. Unfortunately, like Ultraman HappyStudy, I doubt I'll ever be able to see it in motion.

There are a lot of other things to poke fun at, but I've already linked you their website twice now, so we'll just move onto the only sort-of not horrible game they've managed to create.

JaJa's adventure was, believe it or not, a big project. It was supposed to be the game everyone went and got for their tiny itty bitty children, and it was entrusted to CPIgames by the people who created the Smart Kids Series for the DS.

As this trailer puts it:  THE NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED AND AWARD WINNING SERIES IS COMING TO THE NINTENDO Wii.

I'm not sure that being "nationally recognized" is all that important, given anyone who saw the games anywhere in the US gave them recognition. To its credit, JaJa's adventure honestly doesn't look all that bad. The graphics are clean, the worlds are rotating constantly and vomit inducing, and the minigames look pretty okay for the age group.

It's also multiplayer.

I'm definitely going to be playing this one at some point, or maybe forcing someone who's really really patient with me to play it for me. Pretty please.