There's Poop In My Soup Is Actually A Game, And I Actually Played A Game Called There's Poop In My Soup
Mud slinging
I've always argued that there are far too few games about throwing poo at people. It seems an obvious choice for gaming, and yet so few major releases remember to include the feature. So, as is often the case, we have to resort to the world of indies to help us. And that's why there is There's Poop In My Soup [Steam page].
There was, of course, one major game that did - Saints Row 2, that had you spraying faeces from a tanker over the streets, cars and buildings of a neighbourhood in order to lower property values. It was a wondrous thing, and devastatingly has not been repeated in the series since. I tend to assume Volition are secretly working on their masterpiece, a spin-off to the series solely focused on this feature.
It's a shame this game is a piece of garbage, really. But then I'm not really capable of wholly hating a game in which you get to vomit shit on crowds in the streets of Paris. Or letting off poo fireworks in China. It's just, well, it's rubbish.
The idea is that in three levels, you stand above the busy streets flinging your botty-doings at the heads of passers by. A big curly dollop appears on them, and they run around in panic until they collide into something and fall down. AND THAT IS FUNNY. There's also a list for each level of achievements to gain, your "To-Poo List" as it so cleverly calls it. Get some poo in a bowl of soup, get some poo to bounce off a canvas and into a cart, get some poo to hit a mummy and the baby in her pram at the same time. You know the sort of thing.
It's also a teensy bit racist, which is a bummer. France has lazy references to hairy armpits, as if they're a bad thing, and the Chinese level is about as aaahh-soooo ching-chong-chinaman as you can get, right down to slitty-eyed characters and the delightful term "geisha facial". It's lazy and stupid, rather than cruel or offensive, cartoonish stereotyping that was probably thought okay fifteen years ago, but just feels rather awkward these days. But I'd say it is important to remember that this is a game about throwing shit on people's heads.
Anyway, the whole thing is over in half an hour - that's how long it took me to finish the lists for all three levels, including maximum scores, and after that there's potentially not a lot of reason to return. Or start in the first place. But then it's 79p, so it's hard to make too big a fuss, and anyway, if you bought it, you knowingly bought a game that was going to be about chucking plops, so you're not really in a position to complain. Not loudly, at least. Someone would hear.
Right, there you go, I've written five hundred words about this dreadful mess, because I'm 12 years old and I find throwing pretend poo funny. Is it worth 79? No. Would you spend more than five minutes lamenting if you accidentally dropped 79p down a drain? Probably not.
