Jan/12/2002

Viewers who tuned into Mondays South Park were treated to the first glimpse of a previously unheard of gaming console, going by the name of:

2001 Okama Gamesphere

How Okama, previously known only for making those plastic things on the end of your shoelaces, somehow moved into the console market without anyone knowing and got a major license like South Park to agree to debut the system is still a mystery at this time.

But that aside, lets have a look at what this new system has to offer:

Gamesphere? Sounds vaguely GameCube ish, but I'm sure this was merely a coincidence. It seems to have a flat base like the Xbox, with a slightly larger green ball shaped object on top of it. What this does, if it does anything at all, is still unknown at this time.

Two standard control sticks, what looks like a directional pad on the left, and four action buttons on the right. It's not known if it incorporates some type of built in rumble feature, but chances are good. All up, revolutionary stuff.

Towelie in action, if you could call it that. Ahem.

We only get a look at one game on the show, which seems to be a fighter, involving demon horse thingys fighting with chainsaws in the future. Or something. The characters look like they've got bump mapping up the arse, but the backgrounds, well they look almost 2Dish.. This will likely be a launch title.

As for future game software, a newly introduced character in the South Park episode 'Towelie' is heard to constantly ask "Do you want to get high?" I believe this to be a reference to a soon to be announced Towelies Adventure game, which the purpose of will be to get a "high" score. Yes, that's it. Cross promotion at its best.

The launch price can be clearly seen on a store window in the episode as 399.99. By the look of the units on sale, this will only include the console and one controller; no games. While no date has been set for the Australian launch, judging by US price it's looking like it'll sell for around 800 Australian dollars.

So all up, will this be a serious challenger to the GameCube?

In short, no.

With its ridiculous look, shoddy second rate graphics and the fact that the GameCube will be half its price at launch time all work against the 2001 Okama Gamesphere. I mean come on, its name's even out of date.

And if Okama don't start advertising it in stores soon it'll be like it doesn't even exist.

-Blake