Video games have never been the most
plentiful supply of intelligent
writing,
marketing or much else actually and as such several highly interesting misnamings have occured and have afflicted some of the
greatest video games of all time. Here's an
incomplete (and
unordered) list:
- Mario Bros.: Named after the game developers land lord (or some such analog), these Nintendo designers decided to cast a game starring two young Italian plumbers, Mario Mario and Luigi Mario. No, thank you Japan! Brothers, I believe, was too weak a relationship to explain the remarkable similarities between the two. I believe that the Japanese have been ahead of us in cloning technology for years and that 'Mario' was simply a unit of heftiness in their army of monkey wrench carrying killing machcines.
- Finaly Fantasy: There's a good reason for this one and you can find it over at the Final Fantasy node, an interesting tale of hope and bankruptcy but regardless of the origin, the gaming public is now burdened by the fact that the 'Final' Fantasy series is goint to have atleast twelve installations spanning five video game systems. The irony is so thick I'm currently flavoring my coffee with it (tastes like hazlenut).
- the Ultima Series: The misnaming behind this series is apparent if you observe the Latin root of the word ultima, meaning last or superlative (better than others in its set), and contrast that with that fact that these games have gotten steadily worse with every new release. I'd say the lynch pin was Ultima 7 Part I cause, honestly, Part II was stretching it. For the eigth Ultima game they decided to truck out a whole new set of features which eveyone just plain hated. The ridiculously buggy and, for its time, overly system performance heavy Ultima IX failed to sell well, despite being fully patched and some have even claimed enjoyable after a few more months of post-release development. Finally, Ultima Online which promised to bring the Ultima games to a new dimension finally lived up to its Latin roots by killing the series and forcing Lord British to leave Origin Systems.