| Those little bastards! |
As early as I can recall, I remember sitting down on the floor in my early years of my kiddy life, when it was filled to the max with Hot Wheels toys, buncha broken lego sets that I stupidly took apart, and other misc toy crap that you spent $5 for at your local garage sale, all laid across the floor as I feasted my eyes upon the TV screen. I remember that day, along with seeing that Kirby commercial (probably introduced me to the franchise), was a commercial that stuck out like a sore fucking thumb. Now this is debatable because I was later (for real) introduced to these little fellas through something else, so I don't know what came first, the chicken or the egg, which I am going to mention in a few minutes but for now, I can recall that the first time seeing something U.B. Funkeys related was a commercial and I believe it was something like this...
Yeah, something like that!
I remember this one commercial catching my eye pretty quick, one half of me was saying,
"Meh, it's just another gimmicky toy that my parents will never buy in eons"
And another part of me was kinda invested in this whole idea, subconsciously saying,
"Wow, that's pretty innovative! I've never seen a toy that you can actually PROJECT the same physical thing virtually on a screen, that's new!"
It's like one of those commercials where you see it and you're amazed for a few seconds or so, then you forget about it, well lemme tell ya, that "forget about it" turned into "remembered it", because this game has caused me so much pain and nostalgia simultaneously and for various reasons. What really introduced me to them actually was when my mom used to drive me to Wendy's every week (a tradition of ours) after school and she would get me my usual kids meal with the little toy and everything. When I received it in the bag, my mind was piqued of interest like that sore thumb was protruding out again, deja vu! It was all coming back to me, but somehow I couldn't put my finger on it.
Then that commercial I saw back when I was a couple years younger! It all made sense now, the puzzle pieces were coming back together, I got to know about the toy more and it's functions on how it worked. I still to this day have the Wendy's toys, the yellow keychain funkey guy, and the red bobble head funkey guy with a hood, pale face and freckles. The last one is a U.B. Funkeys CD, Disc 2 to be exact. I was already curious as to what this game could possibly be, from looking at the screenshots, it does look very promising.
| Wow, the artist who designed the front cover must have, um, had a lot of free time with this one, huh? |
I popped that son of a bitch into the Windows Vista computer (because this was back in 2009), and the installer popped up, did my usual business and there it was, the U.B. Funkeys game. I actually thought that was the real game at the time because I wasn't a fan of those Wendy's CD Games, they were usually a waste of time, but this one really caught my eye.
So you're first introduced to the story (of course), the main character's name is U.B., now if you sit back and think about it, the title for this game after so many years has really baffled me, why is the game called, "U.B. Funkeys"? At first I thought the "U.B." was shortened for, "USB", and "Funkeys" was a pseudonym for, "Fun-Keys", as in these "Funkeys" are the key to unlocking things in the game? But as I got older, I later found out that, "U.B." is the main character of the game, so why is Funkeys shoehorned into the title, why not just call it, "The Adventures of U.B." or something, I know that title suggestion sounds pretty generic, but at least it's something better than this, it would make it more memorable! That's like calling the first Mario game, "Mario Goombas".
And besides, what the fuck is a "funkey" anyway? Is it supposed to be a play on words implying that they are funky at what they're doing? Is it because they're Fun-Keys, like it's a nickname for the little critters, kinda like "GoGo Crazy Bones"? OR is it supposed to mean that the key to playing this game is having fun? I don't know, they never explain why it's named that.
But anyways, let's not get sidetracked for a bit and get back into the swing of things, the story revolves around U.B. and you're forced (not really, it's skippable) to sit through like 21 or more cutscenes and I do have to say that this game has not really aged that well, it aged well with our hearts but not to the rest of the world. First of all, the cutscenes are just stilled images of half-assed pre-rendered 3D models created on the computer. I know this was developed for Windows XP, and the technological limitations were high back then, but they could've at least tried, but I do have to give props, the voice acting in this game is pretty cheesy to the max!
Anyways, U.B. (at least in my version, I found out there's two versions of this CD, so stories will vary) bitches throughout the entire plot about how bland he/she (I don't know, 'it' sounds like a girl) looks compared to the rest and complains about how he wish he was as colorful and unique as the rest. Several screenshots ensues, and U.B. tries to look different, trying on different hats, etc. Then this blue gandalf looking motherfucker says some shit like,
"It's not what you look like on the outside that counts, it's what the inside counts"
...Wow, haven't I heard that a million times before.
*cough cough* every kindergarten show ever *cough cough*.
So U.B. immediately changed his heart and started accepting for who he is and then I realized that this plotline was so pointless that it doesn't even have any affect or impact on the story. Then it transitions to him shooting fucking pineapples, like bitch, YOU DIDN'T EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE THE AESOP OF THIS STORY!
But anyways, U.B. shoots at flying pineapples, trying not to let them get away, and that's the whole game. I ways pretty disappointed and it wasn't what I expected from a game called, U.B. Funkeys. There were several more categories in this game to explore through, first being a biography section which basically lists all the names for the characters in the game and where they come from. I like it when creators create interesting lore, it's little details like this, that help expand the story. Then we also have the music section which plays background music and I do have to say, this game has a pretty kickass soundtrack, even for a kids game! But that's not what you're here for, I have one more thing to top all this off, what really kickstarted my hobby of this game.
There was a demo section in the game, where you can download it and try the game out, and when I managed the success of installation, I opened the game and... AND...
I was only a third disappointed... BUT OTHER THAN THAT IT WAS PERFECT! Alright that was an exaggeration, but it had some flaws! First of all, why a point and click game? When I first saw screenshots for the game, I expected to use my keyboard to navigate through the game, not a mouse! But the keyboard only come in handy when minigames are involved, activated by said funkey. Another thing that you'll notice is that the models or sprites for the funkeys that you're playing as are basically pre-rendered 3D models. Like they did cut outs for the models that they were working on, and animated it like they were doing stop motion for the movements made with the mouse, it looks kinda weird. Other than that, this game was really fun, I liked the fact that so much detail and effort went into this, from the music, to the painted backgrounds. I do have to take note that the backgrounds are fucking beautiful in this game, like they literally took the time and effort in making them look nice (I'm a huge fan of skeuomorphism so that's kinda another reason)!
So then I finally convinced my mom to buy me some funkeys and oh boy, waiting for the fucking package for this thing was a fucking nightmare, ten days! Now back then, when we were all kids, time passed by the fucking slowest, a day literally felt like a fucking millennium! So imagine going through that ten times, just for a fucking package! Obviously since i'm now an adult, I realize how time passes by so fucking fast, like January still feels like yesterday to me.
But let's get back to the subject, so after waiting for those ten days of purgatory, I finally get the package, well one of them. Come to find out, the other one was delayed and I only got the separate packaged funkey, while the starter kit had to wait, and speaking of that, I can't believe I forgot to introduce you guys to how these little fuckers work.
There are these things called "Starter Packs", when you buy them, it comes with two or more funkeys, a bigger version of the funkeys called the "U.B. Hub", and most importantly, the Game CD. Back then, they can be found in places like Best Buy, K-Mart, Target, etc. and these fuckers were so hard to goddamn find! I only managed to find a THIS at my local Best Buy back in '09, and there was only ONE left in stock! JUST ONE! IT'S THAT RARE!
This is a must-buy back then if you're going to play the game, I mean come on, it's common fucking sense! Why wouldn't you want to buy the Starter Kit, and just buy the separate figures instead? That's like buying a video game without the fucking console.
So after installing the game, you plug the hub into the computer when in-game, this is very important as that is the main gimmick of the whole thing. There are certain places you need to go, and that's where the funkeys come into play. You put them in the back of the hub and play many games with them.
Think of the U.B. Hub as a mini console, mostly like those old classic consoles like the NES, SNES, N64, etc. where you plopped the cartridges into the slot to play, but instead of cartridges, they're funkeys, and each funkey comes with a mini-game that you can play, so you might as well call them cartridges. You also at times have to blow on the damn detection pin as well just to get them to work on the fucking hub. Most of the time if you just casually put a funkey in the U.B. a fucking message will pop up, giving you an error which says something like this,
"There is something wrong with your U.B. Can you check it for me? -Quit Game"
I swear, playing the game is one thing, but trying to put the funkeys in is a real pain in the ass! Sometimes I literally spend almost five fucking minutes just to get the damn things to work, and that same message will keep popping up! And "Quit Game", what the fuck does that have to do with the situation? There's no, "Try Again", option, like have a loading icon as it rechecks your funkeys? No, you have to constantly take the fucking thing out and put it back in, like trying to accurately stick your dick in a fucking moving horse's asshole while riding on a fucking wagon, rolling down a steep rocky fucking mountain while there's birds taking a fucking shit on your face. The game might as well just tell me to go fuck myself if that's the only option I've been given with...
So as I was saying about the funkeys, um, yeah when I first received it, it was not what I expected... First the all, these things are two times smaller than I would've imagined, and I was kinda disappointed. I thought it was going to be as big as the Wendy's toys, but I digress. The first funkey I ever got (that is before the starter pack), was a fallout. Now I know what you're all thinking, and yes these funkey figures have actual names, and that's one of the things I loved about the funkeys were the names and its designs that compliment them! Today they may look like worthless vinyl figures, but to me, it's like memory lane! The colorful paint jobs given to these figures alike and the creative catchy names to compliment them. The fallout funkey I got was an orange looking guy with a gas-mask on, I guess he must be one of those crazy tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists.
One thing I noticed about the funkeys is that they have that cheap rubber feel, I know it's Mattel and they do kinda a crappy job, but come on! You could easily smear the paint off the funkeys if you're not careful! Despite it being too small, it was still worth the wait because the next day, I had a funky-fucking heart attack, I finally got the package in the mail and I was extremely happy, there it was, my very first starter pack! It came with the CD, a hub, and four funkeys. I don't exactly remember which ones I've got specifically, but one of them was a clock face, some vampire looking dude, an egyptian mummy guy, and some dog... Yeah, just a dog, that's all.
 |
| Something like this. |
You guys probably know that I, at this point wasn't hesitant, because I've already torn open the fucking box like a wild dog who's just been introduced to a new toy! I took out the disk, my mom installed it for me on my crappy windows vista computer (yeah, back then I had a vista, which was nostalgic to me, but was a slow piece of shit) and there it was, the menu screen! Please note that this game is very old and is not compatible with future computer systems such as Windows 7 and above. Luckily I still have a vista laptop that's still running today, so I was able to install it recently. If you're one of those people who grew up with this game and want to play it again so badly but your computer doesn't meet the requirements, I'd recommend that you either run it in a virtual box or go to this link for more help.
So after all that banter, this particular game however has a password system, like, why the fuck do you need a fucking password to play some fucking mini-games!? And whats even funnier is that the next time you log into the game, everything's already preloaded in the text input fields. All you have to do is select and click on your username in the drop-down box and the password is already filled in! Like what's the point of the password system then!? And who in their right minds would take the time to hack into a children's game aimed at 7+ Year Olds just so they can steal their bragging rights, you got to have no life if you're going to do something like that!
Well anyways, I logged into the game, and then the game asks me to update because I had some new funkeys and shit, and the newer models didn't match the datebase, so I did that and then finally after going through many updates, we finally get into the goddamn game! You are first greeted by a blue gandalf looking motherfucker who introduces you to the story and talks about sharing is caring and all that other jazz. So then when that's done, you think you're finished right? Nope, this blue fuck will keep stalking you to no fucking end, annoying you every single time. Every time a dialogue box pops up, this electric guitar riff plays for a few seconds and then this guy would just ramble away, like just shut the fuck up and let me play the game goddamn it!
SO FINALLY when you survived that tedious lecture by the great Methuselah II here, you begin to roam around and- you son of a BITCH! So if your brain cells haven't rotten away that much and managed to survive the pointless rambling, you begin to roam around and find out how beautiful and interactive the game is. You can click on other funkeys like yourself and they'll just say random shit, sometimes introducing themselves. Others will give you quests that you can fulfill and in return, you're rewarded money.
You can go into shops and spend your hard earned money buying shit for your house. Yes, it's called a crib, you can access it by clicking the dome-shaped, house like button at the bottom right hand side screen. It's nothing but decorations and it doesn't do anything. You can't even interact with them! You just place them down and just stare at them, and that's basically it. Pretty intriguing game isn't it?
But you're probably asking, where do you get the money? Well from playing the fucking games silly! But what games? Well inside many of the buildings where the funkeys go in and play called game rooms. So I go in and play and oops! What's this? Well come to find out all the places are locked and you need the "funkeys" to enter certain buildings and play the games.
Okay, first of all and foremost, I forgot to mention that there is a villain in the game named, Master Lox (haha get it, Master Lox, because he 'Locks' things), formerly named "Doctor Tinker" (get it, because he tinkers with- okay i'll stop) who built the portals to other parts of Terrapinia (yeah, there's an actual name for the planet they're living on) so it can be easier and shit for travelling and saved lots of money for air travel and fuel costs. However, one day the portals blew up on him, pulling a Spiderman 2 (doc ock) on him and Tinker was nowhere to be found.
First of all, if the portals exploded on Doctor Tinker and he was nowhere to be found, how and where in the fuck did he get that fucking black cloak from!? What kind of fucking sorcery is this!? Did the universe just suddenly prepare an evil looking black cloak conveniently so he can wear it in disguise? Who made the black robe? Was there some evil puppeteer like Emperor Palpatine controlling him, who made the robes for him just like when Palpatine made the Darth Vader suit for ana- ah fuck it.
So anyways, the portals can now only be accessed with certain funkeys, so it can give mattel an excuse to make more money for this game. If you try to go in the portals without the correct funkey, access it denied.
Now, with the portals, I can kinda understand because you know, certain funkeys have privilages to access them, but what I don't understand is the certain game rooms in the game that prohibits you from entering! Like, you were just talking about the importance of that portal event, how the fuck does that affect you from entering the buildings? What, is there like a ray shield and prevents you from entering the facility? Does it activate fucking missile launchers from the ceiling, blowing you to smithereens if you attempt to intrude on their property? If you try to enter a building, a message pops up that says among the lines of,
"Curse you Master Lox! I need to be *said funkey* to enter!"
Wait, so Master Lox is to blame for keeping you from entering buildings as well? How the fuck does that work? Unless the people in the building aren't welcoming you in, and are very discriminatory? Segregation much? I don't know, it doesn't make sense.
But then you find out after all that shit, you gotta buy more of these fucking funkeys until you go completely broke! So, that means if you get a funkey that you like, but the mini-games that comes with it is absolute shit and pays you nothing but peanuts, you're fucked, money down the fucking drain, fuck me in the ass bitch, i'm ready! But on top of that, You need approximately every funkey, and by every funkey, I mean EVERY FUNKEY FOR EACH ZONE TO BEAT THE GAME!
Yeah, it's actually possible to beat this game and it's by defeating Master Lox (seriously what kinda name is that, sounds like a computer virus or something). You've had to have every funkey for every portal associated with it, collect all the four gems (but they don't give it to you right a way, no they give you half a gem, just to make the game longer) and that's how you beat the game. It is never explained how you can specifically get the gems, you gotta get extremely lucky in one of the games for one of these things to happen. I've only gotten one-half gem, but it took me almost a month just to get that, so it's just pure luck. I never beaten the game, so I don't really know.
As said before, there are many different portals that the funkeys go through, it's like an expansion to the world instead of just the main hub world you're put in, kinda like flying to another country. Each of the zones usually contains four funkeys (sometimes five if you count the chat funkeys, i'll get into that later) for each of the following.
For the zones, the examples are as follows:
- Funkeystown (Main hub you spawn in)
- Funkiki Island (a rip off of Hawaii)
- Speed Racer Land (some huge sponsorship cash grab)
- Magma Gorge (Hell)
- Kelpy Basin (Underwater)
- Laputa Station (Outer space)
- Paradox Green (An ECO System/greenhoused environment)
- Nightmare Rift (nightmare land obviously)
- Daydream Oasis (Acid trip)
- Hidden Realm (Asian Land)
Each of these zones are very important, well typically four of them I believe, since the original game was just those four zones before it got updated, but still. You have to get the gems for each of those zones and there you go, you beat the game I think, i'm not sure though.
What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, so anyways, you go into these little buildings which I think are called Game Rooms, and you play these minigames that are accessed with certain funkeys, you play the games and some of the games are the most backwards ass things you'd come across when it comes to making money. I know that this game is supposed to teach kids the aspects of real life and that, "money doesn't grow on trees", but are you fucking expecting me to play 10 minutes of a fucking minigame only to get paid 20 coins!? That's fucking bullshit!The first game I played was the dog game and with it came the shittiest game, I swear, out of all the mini-games in this one, this had to be the shittiest! It's just a scrabble knock-off game where you rearrange letters to earn points, who the fuck wants to do that!? A fucking math practice exercise is more fun than this. So after you're done banging your head on the goddamn keyboard not knowing what word to put next, the timer runs out, you've only mustered one or two words so far, and you get paid zero coins! Like what the fuck, you couldn't at least pay me one coin, why zero? It also seems that no matter how hard you try, you still get paid shit! I remember getting all six words in the first batch, manage to get all of them within three minutes, and all I get is ten coins! How the fuck do they expect you to beat this game, do you expect me to obtain the brain of Albert fuckin' Einstein!? So you know what, I just said fuck it and moved on, fuck that game! Fuck that fucking analbag piece of elephant fucking shit!
What's even worse is that these Mini-Games will give you trophies or sometimes an exclusive prize decoration for your crib if you did well on one. Now i'm not sure if this is one of the achievements required to beat this game, because i'm assuming that winning every trophy is how you get the crystal gems in the game, but please tell me... Are you fucking expecting me to be good at this fucking dog mini-game, that you think i'll even be close to getting a fucking trophy!? You get paid 0-20 coins, so what makes you think you'll ever get a fucking trophy!? Ya gotta be outta ya fuckin minds!
Alright... The next one is some kind of nightmare dystopian zone, the Nightmare Rift. I got the vampire and the egyptian guy. I think the vampire one's name is slurp or vlurp or whatever the fuck that is. Like who the fuck even came up with these names/? Like I know these games are my childhood and I love em' as much as the next person, but seriously? Ptep? Tadd? Rastro? Deuce? And what the fuck is a deuce anyways? Well according to the google definition of the word, it means,
A competitive term non-the-less, so what the fuck does a word that's associated with competition have to do with a stereotypical, red devil with a fiery emblem on his torso and horns? Well, I never knew satan held the, "National Hell Olympics" then.
But I think the worse offender has to be "Ptep". Really? Ptep? Oh come on, now i'm thinking that they made this up or something just to get more funkeys out on the spot! What the fuck is a Ptep? What? Is it a Pterodactyl gone into hiding? So he bandaged his face up so he wouldn't be recognized by the meteors coming to kill him or something? I don't know, maybe i'm looking to much into this.
So we get in the nightmare zone, and before I continue, I forgot to introduce you to this guy earlier who's kinda important to the plot. When I first saw him, I thought he was badass, and he still looks badass today! His name is Marshall, he wears this Sherlock Holmes'-esque outfit and a fedora hat. He has that suave, classy, detective voice from the 40's and kinda reminds me of a mix between Indiana Jones, Batman and Alucard from Hellsing. He's from the Dreamstates (which was an update for the series) and he usually guides you through the dream and nightmare zones. They were also going to release him as a funkey along with many others, but sadly that never became a thing...
When I first went to the Nightmare Rift dimension, my heart nearly blew out of my fucking chest, as this zone is nightmare fuel TO THE MAX! You are first greeted by a creepy, Tim Burton-esque animation, which acts as the loading screen, and the first thing you see is something outta an H.R. Giger's nightmare-land dystopia, mixed with broken cars, World War 2 styled environments, deserts, and gothic architecture. The Indiana Jones guy introduces us to all of the areas within this zone, and the funkeys that inhabit it, such as the Ptep (mummy), Snipe (military), Vlurp (vampire, wow is that blood on his teeth?), and Sprocket (some kinda Iron Giant reject). All of these funkeys inhabit the nightmare zone, and just like any other zone, you have to get the highest score in order to get something special.
The first game I tried was the vampire game. Now in this game, you're a vampire and you're on some kind of floating platform. The goal is to get to the green swirling portal thingy, and it takes you to the next level. As each level progresses, the stages get harder and harder, the next level having these floating pink platforms of goop that you can only step on once, and collapses beneath your feet if you jump onto the next platform.
If you screw up and get yourself trapped, you go back to the previous level! Which is FUCKING BULLSHIT! That's like playing a Mario level and if you die, you go back to the last level, which is the most backwards ass thing I've ever experienced! And on top of that, there's a time limit! You have to get to the goal before your vampire ass bites the sun! Yeah, how would you like to fuck up and go back to the previous level, all the while being fucking timed!? However, at least you get payed fairly, the highest coins I've gotten was 40 coins, which was good so I didn't waste anymore time after all. Sometimes, if you're really good at the game, you're awarded with a decorative item called, "Noctomatoes", something like that, it's just a rotten tomato plant, that's it.
Alrighty, next one of the starter pack is the Ptep, whatever that is. I never knew how to pronounce his name until Marshall mentioned it on screen, so it's canon. I used to literally pronounce it, "PH-TPTPEPPPP!!!!". You know when you get the feeling to pronounce the "P" and the "T" at the same time, ah whatever.
In this game, you play a memorization game where you must match the icons hidden under the sarcophagi in some kind of pyramid. On the side of the screen, you're also timed in this game, man oh man. You have to match an entire column of the sarcophagi, starting from the top all the way at the bottom before the hourglass runs out. Each row of the sarcophagi gets larger and larger, so it's actually shaped like a pyramid. If you make it in time, you progress to the next stage, and it gets harder and harder, that's basically it, just rinse and repeat.
If I haven't mentioned already, there are also shops in the game rooms. Yeah, each of the game rooms have a shop, you buy the items from there once you've completed the games, if you feel the need to, that is. This get really chaotic, because most of the themes of the games associated with the shop items usually results in decorative clashing for your crib, you really don't have a mix and match here and there. Now, i'm not saying that every item should be the same but all the items literally have a different art style, some being cutesy, and others being realistically gothic. It really makes all your decorations look like they're a fucking souvenir clusterfuck!
Okay, the next funkey .. Drift...Yeah the clock-faced funkey's name is called Drift. He is what i'm assuming, some kind of Nascar type funkey. Alright, back to our hometown that we started in, Drift lives in this giant Tire shaped game room, and the mini-game that came with it is pinball, just pinball. In this version of pinball, you have three sets of flippers and, do I really have to explain this? It's pinball come on. Now, though I grew up with Windows XP, I played the classic pinball game, and it was so addicting as fuck, this game however is so fucking hard for me! No matter how hard I try, the ball manages to slip by and go into the fucking hole, it's fucking horseshit! There's no difficulty curve in this, no strategy, just hope to God that you make it before the ball hits the shitter! And most of the matches only last for a minute and that's it. It doesn't matter if you have five balls, you're going down the shitter, it's unpredictable! Oh and the only payment is 20 coins, fuck this game.
*sigh*
And for the last one, i'm going to talk about the aforementioned funkey above. Remember fallout right? Well, this game is the most disappointing one yet, one of the shittiest games I've ever played. You heard me, more shitty than that fucking dog game. The game room is located in that space zone area, Laputa Station. The game itself though is a different fucking story. It's just valley ball... You're two fuckers in goddamn hazard suits and gas masks hitting a fucking toxic waste symbol (which acts as a ball), while in the background are barrels of green toxic waste, some spilling over on the goddamn floor, and in some kind of lab. That looks like some serious business going in the background and you're going to deny the fact that there's radioactive wastes all over on the floor and you guys are just going to play a fucking volley ball game, is that what we've fucking come to? Another thing that should be noted is that these games look fucking cheap as hell, half of these games shouldn't be called games, they're just simple flash games preloaded onto the drive of the funkey. Half of these games should belong to newgrounds. I know this game is ten years old, but come on, they could've at least tried!
Anyways, your main objective is to hit the ball to the other side of the post, trying to make the other player lose, right? But no, the controls are half-fucking-assed! No matter how hard I fucking try, I CAN'T GET THE FUCKING BALL OVER THE FUCKING POST, THIS IS FUCKING ELEPHANT SHIT! Your character moves so slow, and they all jump like they're on the fucking moon, well I guess they're in space, but still! The ball takes a million fucking years just to get to the other side, and the only action I only can muster is the ball reach two fucking feet in the air, mostly achieving the strike, flying at a 170 degree angle, just to hit the fucking post and I lose, oh but the opponent, they can hit the fucking ball no problem and you get your ass kicked again and again and again... Fuck this game, fuck it to hell, it was one of my childhood disappointments and i'm having PTSD just from talking about it.
Now that that's out of the way, remember when I said several paragraphs back, about chat funkeys? Well here it is. Yes, this game had an online interaction functionality. Back then, when the servers were up that is, kids would interact with each other and the only way to interact was to use a special kind of tool, a funkey that is, called, Chat Funkeys. Yeah what the fuck is that!? Well, you put them in your fucking hub you see. Just like the games in the game rooms, the only way to chat with people is to use a funkey. There are four variations of the chat funkeys, but I don't think that matters, it only comes down to preference, just pick out what chat funkey you like and go to town with it, there's no point in buying all four of them. Now tell me, why the fuck would I want to spend my money, $10 to be exact on a fucking funkey just to chat with people, it just seems like they're just being money grabbing assholes! This is just as much of a dick move as the "pay for multiplayer monthly" on various consoles!
You know, why can't this game just have online multiplayer to begin with? Yeah, that would've been fucking awesome, you get your friends and you hook up with each other online, you chat while you roam and play, and you challenge each other on various games together, that would be a neat edition to the game! Now I do know that it is possible to play games online, but only a very select few. One example being Dyer's game in Daydream Oasis. I'm assuming since the world knows very little about this franchise and it's existence, there's probably no point in doing it. I mean it's not as popular as League of Legends, so you're going to have very few players.
If you try to use the chat funkeys today, well you can't. The servers are dead and Mattel killed the franchise, which i'll get into a second. You can still buy stuff from the shops which is convenient, but you can't use the chat room period! The only way you can play it is that I heard if you connect to the Portuguese server, it'll work from there, and I also heard somewhere that Finland has or had a server as well, but I can't confirm that information. Other than that, the game is dead.
And speaking of dead, there are also dead portals. Yeah, if you roam around the game, you'll see broken portals scattered about, that is because Mattel was planning on making more funkeys in the future and implementing more portals associated with future series, and one of them was a DC Comics line that would've came to the series, but sadly the franchise died a horrible damn death that it was sadly not possible to achieve such an outcome! So it's just another reminder that this potentially made game sadly died, and the world never looked back on it since.
So, now that we've talked about all the numerous funkeys (chat funkeys, etc.), and quite a handful examples of the games listed above, we can finally put this case to rest right? Well you've got your money, or coins, you can roam around and buy shit, play the games again and decorate your crib, you're minding your own business, exploring new places and shit and, then you hear...
DUN DUN!
You look around you amongst the crowd of funkeys, in fear and cower, trying to find the source, and then you hear it again...
DUN DUN!
Next thing you know, some metallic tin-canned shaped motherfucker comes careening towards you in a hostile fashion! You start panicking and start running, and you run, run run! You're trying to look through your collection of funkeys in your drawer, simultaneously trying to outrun the bastard, knocking some of them off your desk, screaming, "WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT FUNKEY!?", and then you finally find it! You grab it, and put it in the U.B. hub, and then you find yourself stuck in some corner of a fucking wall as it catches up with you. That's right, the fucking henchmen. The fucking henchmen in this game is basically what killed this game for me. You know the saying, "There is no perfect world", well this is a good fucking example of it!
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| Fuck |
These bastards will stop at nothing to get your fucking coins, your hard earned money, and when they confront you, they make you play some mini-game, yeah a fucking mini-game. You have to guess the fucking bags motherfucker! So if you get the wrong ones, it's all on you, the henchmen walks away like nothing fucking happened. You know, how come the funkeys aren't even paying attention or jumping in to help after the fact that someone just got robbed. Why are there no fucking police officers in this game? Why can't you like... make a report to the authorities and file charges? Maybe a restraining order? Why are the funkeys acting so afraid of the fucking henchmen? As from what I can tell, they're not armed, I mean it's not like they're holding a gun to your head or a knife to your throat. Why can't the funkeys just invent guns and blast away the fucking henchmen, then we'll have no problem? Why the fuck do we have this lawless society where people are getting robbed, and they get away with it scott free? What is this, Mexico? Are the henchmen holding a fucking drug trafficking ring too? How come there's no FTPD (Funkeystown Police Department), arresting the fuckers?
So the objective here is that you're in the process of being robbed, well that's just fucking great. The first thing you see is a bunch of bags layered across this mini pop-up window, and you have to click the bags that contains either the positive or negative numbers, but they don't fucking show you, do they, they don't fucking show you how to fucking win the game! There's no strategy, you just have to guess and be lucky, HOPING THAT YOU GET AS MANY POSITIVES AS YOU CAN BEFORE YOU GET FUCKED IN THE ASS! So then you keep clicking the bags until the Henchmen pops out, the henchmen is hiding in one of the bags and the objective is that you have to find him, that's when you can end the game! If you get the more positives, you win back your coins and then some. If you lose, you're forced to watch this depressing animation, a fucking animation that will haunt your childhood, of your funkey getting robbed, as all your fucking coins fly up in the sky, and the henchmen just walks away. It's a cruel joke played by the developers to mentally scar the innocent, and it will remain a stain in your brain. You might as well get anal raped in this fucking game, wait do funkeys have genitals, ah fuck it.
So then the blue gandalf guy, which I later learned his name is, "Mayor Sayso", I fucking, shit you motherfucking not! He then proceeds to lecture you about how dangerous these "henchmen" are and how they steal your hard earned coins. Well gosh, you could've told me that before all this mayhem happened to me, you anus-shaped, feces-licking piece of fucking shit, donkey-dick owning, vagina-shriveled up, swine-fucking, goat piss drinking, hippopotamus-motherfucking-hippofucker! And besides, YOU'RE THE FUCKING MAYOR! YOU RUN THE CITY, HOW CAN YOU LET THESE BASTARDS GET AWAY AND ACCEPT IT AS JUST A FACT OF LIFE? ARE YOU FUCKING HIGH!?
So, if you haven't noticed already, my interest in the franchise has declined, and it died with the series as it plummeted to the ground, bit the dust and was never heard from again. The henchmen sequences are one of the very things that haunted me as a child, and it's basically what turned me off from playing the game. All my yearnings for exploring the game has been trampled over by this one fatal flaw, the fucking henchmen. No strategy, just pure luck, that's how you can beat them. I rather 69' a fucking horse, while spewing diarrhea shit on the fucking ceiling fan as it paints the fucking room motherfucking brown! My taste for this fucking game died right when the forums died. Yeah! Remember when this game had a forum?
Another element of my childhood, was the forums, a favorite place to visit and read! I had an account on there too and would post frequently, I think it was called, "GlubIsCool" or something like that. It's one of those, "post and be approved", forums, much like the LEGO Message Boards (Rest In Peace). It's not like the standard PHPBB format of forums where you simply write a message and your submission is instant. No, back then, you had to wait half a fucking day, to almost damn there two days just to get approved! It's either approved by the moderators or administrators, but what's great about this is that the mods aren't the typical power hungry, authoritative assholes. Instead they're very nice and helpful and will try to give you tips on how to beat certain parts of the game, which was great!
I remember reading on the forums, from off topic posts to ones related to said categories based on the zones within the game, which mostly consists of role play. I remember there was a "Funnies" forum, which I would laugh my ass off every fucking time as a kid. I also made a few friends here and there and I remember every night after school, the first thing I would do is visit the funkeys forum! It was a very fun experience and I remember eating pizza, enjoying my weekend while being entertained by the charming lighthearted posts.
There would be some random posts like, "See if you can draw an 8 with one hand, and a circle on the other, confusing right!?", and others were usually fanfiction. My most favorite was the Funnies forum because they would write stupidly funny things that would make me laugh out loud. There was also an Off Topic Discussion, but that's in every forum, so it needs no explanation.
In fact, most of these categories on that message board were inspirations for the categories on my forum. I might list the name of my forum in the future on this blog, but I also have a forum and most of the categories on my forums are parallels and reminiscent of the same categories on that forum, that's how much that site had an impact on me.
This was also the year which I would consider the golden age of my childhood! So many good memories, so many great things happening in my life at the time, especially the holidays, it was going all well and good for me. But one day, an unfortunate news was delivered to me and I still remember the date to this day, seven years later. Sadly I was never informed of such a tragedy and I was just left heartbroken, just like when Luke went back to his home to find Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru murdered, that's how I felt.
On January 4th, 2010, the forums were no more. It had been shut down, and I still remember to this day that I was crying, because all my friends on the forum were gone forever, separated for eternity! I remember my very, very last post was a topic that I've created.
It was on around either January 2 - January 3, I think, and I've posted a topic asking if they saw the new Bionicle movie at the time. It was called, Bionicle: The Legend Reborn. I only got one reply, and my very last post was, "Remember when Mata Nui turned Metus into a snake?". It was very late at night when I posted this, I also forgot to mention that the topic was created on my DSi, because my parents restricted my internet back then, which sucked.
So, I woke up the next morning, I did my healthy habits, and when I checked on my DSi, there it was, right in front of my fucking face in bold text saying that it shut down as of said date aforementioned. This is when my interests really declined, since the community was one of the things keeping my tastes alive at the time, it was like a chain broken into two, forever separated and cannot be reassembled.
However, hope was not lost as my mom did order me two more funkeys. They were, Sprout and Flurry. I remember getting them in the mail. I opened it, put those fuckers in and found out that the mini-games that came with it were pretty shitty and kinda disappointing, so it was a lose-win-lose situation for me. You can look up the games yourselves if you want, because I don't want to further delay the inevitable.
Then after my excitement was spiked up by ten percent, it came crashing down into the negatives again as my mom later informed me the bad news that she will not be buying me anymore U.B. Funkeys. I was literally crying at this point because you NEED the funkeys to beat the game, but now that she stopped, i'm only stuck with the eight funkeys that I had. Her reasoning was that it was a rip off and a waste of money. I thought she just probably just read it from some bullshit article, so she stopped buying them. Just another nail put in my gloomy coffin. But as I grew older, come to think about it, it actually makes sense! Why pay $7-8 for a toy that comes with a shitty mini-game that looks like it was made in flash? And this was back in 2009, imagine that into today's money? Inflation! There are other toys made out of the same rubbery material from the dollar store! Half of these games looks like it can easily be programmed by beginner programmers!
Well at this point, I've lost all hope. There's no point in continuing my interest if it's restricted by the fact that I can't get anymore funkeys. As time went by, I've forgotten about the thing and moved onto other things as my funkeys collected dust and became lost overtime, the hub disappeared and luckily I still had the U.B. Funkeys CD. The only funkey I still have currently is a decapitated dog funkey, lost its head and don't know where it went.
As each year passed, I began to notice how very underrated this toyline is. Even though it was riddled with the unfair system of robbery, and the fact that Mattel WANTED YOU to buy every single toy, the more years that has passed, the more nostalgic I felt for it. I realized that all my life, not a single kid that I've met, know what a U.B. Funkey is, it's that rare. I'm surprised that the toyline managed to survive half a decade before going out the door, and it was due to the low sales. I've yet to rendezvous with one, but that was a sleep over, and by "yet", he had almost an entire fucking collection! My balls blew the fuck off my gonads area and bounced back up, hitting me in the fucking face! But that's a story for another time.
U.B. Funkeys is the most least talked about thing on the planet, and only a few thousand people know of its existence. It's so unpopular that even TvTropes doesn't have a page for it. The only thing I found on TvTropes was a page of one of the tropers saying that U.B. Funkeys is a game for "manchildren" who have no lives... Okay...
FUCK YOU!
But something treacherous came among the midst of it all, a blasphemous sin that is a huge stain to the face of marketing! Skylanders... Not only these fuckers stole the idea from U.B. Funkeys, but these assholes had the fucking AUDACITY to claim that they are the first ones who came up with the "Toys To Life" gimmick. First of all, fuck you. Second of all, this is outright fucking plagiarism! If you're going to make something that inspired you, at least credit the source! What the fuck is this, why is Skylanders making millions of dollars in the fucking market, while U.B. Funkeys had just barely, BARELY MADE ANY!? You would think the former would get more praise, but no, stealing from them is okay, and then? PROFIT! WHY SHOULD WE CARE AS A COMPANY? Mattel would've and should've sued the living shit out of their asses! Third of all, fuck yo-
It almost makes U.B. Funkeys a retcon, a hidden gem at this point! It didn't have to be this way! But yet Skylanders and Infinity get to make millions! Maybe it's because majority of the people back then weren't big into technology as we are today? I mean look around you, almost every monitor's standard quality is 1080p. Maybe U.B. Funkeys wasn't released around the right time and it just disappeared slowly off the face of the Earth just like the Google Glass? Another good example that a hidden gem is worth more than the successor, and sadly so. Just like when Oreos ripped off Hydrox and LEGO ripped off Kiddicraft (except LEGO is a million times better).
So getting back to what i'm saying... So a few years later, around the fall of 2014, a thought just came across my mind again, U.B. Funkeys. Realizing how nostalgic it is, I decided to just search it up on youtube about my lost childhood just to see how well it has aged, as I haven't visited the game in years! The first result surprisingly was by the youtuber named, "FourSidedBall". In the nick of time, they did the first episode of the let's play for U.B. Funkeys. My heart sank in pure joy, realizing that it wasn't a franchise that was forgotten after all!
Watching the video, I can feel the nostalgia flowing through me, relating with the youtuber, realizing that their childhoods were based on this game too. This immediately encouraged me to start getting back into U.B. Funkeys.
Well getting back into the game franchise was right, after two years of deciding, I was considering rebuying all my funkeys. Well the time had came and it was time for be to start hunting. On Ebay, I was surfing through the product listings, looking for good deals on funkeys. According to my plan, I was going to buy them back. It was that day, I decided to do it, I decided to buy back my childhood, and make my childhood dream come true! Well here it is, something that I've always wanted is finally here and it's sitting on my desk right now!
As a kid I always wanted them, but there was limitation. Now that i'm an adult with a part time job, I finally got it! 42 funkeys is what it came with, and one of them was this fucker! It also came with Master Lox and Mayor Sayso! I'm so happy, as most of these funkeys in that 42 bundle was something I've always wanted. The bundle also included at least one or two funkeys of each zone, it is an expansion of my childhood, and that's what it should've been! I can go to zones like Paradox Green (One of them is Tadd) and on top of that, MOST OF THEM ARE RARE!
Now if you don't know, yes there are rare variations of funkeys, which is why some of them were different colors, hence the name. There are two kinds of rare funkeys, there's the "Rare", and the "Very Rare". The more rare your funkey is, the more money you make! Which is great, so hopefully I won't suck at that fucking dog game. This is also the first time I ever had a rare funkey in my life!
Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to go to Paradox Green or Daydream Oasis! There was something about Paradox Green that intrigued me! I love the world building and the attention to detail and how it parallels to the real world, it was a great form of escapism for me! Now that I have those funkeys, I guess I have the glass half full, huh? Gone are the days of being paranoid about the henchmen around the corner, to becoming the henchmen and robbing people. There's even a villains den where you play a henchmen game and catch coins falling from the sky, but you have to pay 20 coins to play. Yeah paying money to make money, that makes a whole lot of sense, oh wait we have casinos.
I also believe that most of the funkeys that I have now, you can almost beat the game with them. I was able to solve mysteries that had me wondering as a kid, such as the hidden realm, or the quests that you have to finish. I don't actually have to be depressed anymore about not having enough, even though it isn't a complete collection, I still have a few funkeys missing. Let's say about 10 more, it's still more than enough for me and I am able to have a full experience as a kid once again, but this time it's bigger!
Now I won't give you the exact price of the item I've payed for, just for anonymity sake, but it was fucking expensive. Now it wasn't like the same amount you would pay for a Giorgio Armani suit, but it was pretty fairly priced, and shipping too was expensive as well. In the end though it was worth it, and the reason why I said that and why I made that decision, for starters, IT CAME WITH MASTER LOX! The most expensive funkey on the market, and I have him in my collection! How awesome!
As we fans of the franchise are getting older, we start to realize that it's a growing community that's been dead, we're mentally resurrecting the corpse. I've been to most of the funkey forums that are basically fansites at this point, and it's really sad that this game didn't get the recognition it deserves. The forums are all empty, they get little to no posts at all, the subreddit probably has 20 something members, and etc. But I realize that we are growing, that's why I signed the petition!
https://www.change.org/p/mattel-mattel-bring-back-u-b-funkeys
The signings are currently around the 700 mark, and 300 more are needed to fill the petition as of this time, and we're doing good so far. Now I know petitions don't usually work, but I have faith in this! I hope it succeeds. Once we reach the 1,000 mark, hopefully Mattel will take that petition into consideration to either rebooting the franchise or probably develop a spiritual successor to the series, either way, I hope it succeeds and hope it will please the fans. If not, well at least we tried, and showed our passion for this game as a community.
U.B. Funkeys will always be apart of my childhood, it will be in our hearts until we perish! Thank you Mattel and Radica for giving me a great childhood, it will be one of my favorites, along with the Nintendo games, and it always will and for years to come.
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