[typing]
Back in the mid-to-late-'90s,
Microsoft was in some serious crap.
It was alleged that Microsoft was abusing their power,
creating this monopoly on Intel-based personal computers,
because of their bundling of the operating system and web browser and all this crap.
It was a pretty good time to hate Microsoft,
because, well,
they were doing some really shady stuff,
and they were just getting bigger and bigger
and squashing a bunch of the little guys.
It took years and years
for the case to be settled.
And in the meantime, there was plenty of media attention,
all pointing fingers at Microsoft and Bill Gates for one reason or another.
One of them being Microshaft Winblows 98,
a self-proclaimed unauthorized, no-punches-pulled parody
released in 1997,
by Parroty Interactive.
Now these guys only lasted a few years in the mid-'90s.
They also released some parodies of the game Myst,
called Pyst,
Star Warped, which is a parody of Star Wars,
and The X Fools,
a parody of "The X-Files."
Yeah...
I'd be hard-pressed to call them a game company.
You'll see some people call them a games company,
or that they made games.
They really didn't. I mean, they kind of did, but they didn't.
This is– it's not a game.
It's a parody program.
[whiny] "Not Justice Dept. Approved." Oh, political humor.
"And other side-splitting spoofs of the company, the software and the man."
"Side-splitting"...
Presuming that's from laughter and not from you cutting open your sides
just to get rid of the pain of this crap.
Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself here.
"Who does he want to own today?"
"He" being Bill Gates.
Yeah, 'cause he wants to own everything apparently, 'cause he's rich?
"All these bug-free activities."
"Bug-free." Ah, Microsoft Windows, it's all buggy and stuff. Ha ha.
Inside the box, you get a basic manual
which doesn't really tell you much of everything.
You don't really need to be told anything. It's pretty self-explanatory.
And you get the CD, of course,
which is... it's just CD, it's, uh...
It's not a flower pot, it's not a desk.
It is a CD...
You'll start Winblows with a window
letting you enter your name so you can save your progress.
Of course, this assumes anyone would want to actually come back to it.
But I digress.
You're then greeted by two Microsoft–er...
"Microshaft" employees,
Graham and Meg, who congratulate you on,
pfft, entering your name, I guess.
Which has granted you access to the "super-secret" Winblows server.
GRAHAM: I'm Graham, and this is Meg.
MEG: Why are we whispering?
Because we don't want to get into trouble.
Well, why didn't we just use fake names?
Oh, that would have been a better idea.
- You are always right. - Okay, never mind, never mind.
LGR: Yes.
Those kind of jokes pass for laughs in Winblows.
And honestly, I could end the video right here
because that kind of humor is all you'll get
throughout the entire thing.
Well, okay, you do get the occasional immature joke,
which is kind of funny in passing.
Almost. Not really. Never mind.
Then the Winblows desktop appears
and Meg and Graham continue talking until you shut them up.
GRAHAM: How come the programmers don't let me hang out with them?
MEG: Well, you never should have thrown out their Coke can sculpture.
LGR: Seriously, they just keep going on about stuff
that is neither funny or even slightly engaging.
So just click on them and make 'em shut their mouths.
So, what can you do here?
Well, Winblows mostly reminds me of those children's activity centers
back in the '90s,
where you just click on things and listen to the
cartoony sound effects,
and watch the simplistic animations
in order to appease the most infantile of minds for a few seconds.
[fart, crank noises]
Heh. Yeah.
Really.
You also get a Billagotchi in the bottom-right corner
which is a reference to the Tamagotchi virtual pet games
that were so popular back then.
You can feed Bill Gates money, slap him on the butt,
and... that's about it.
It doesn't seem to affect much of anything, so who cares?
It's more a case of "hey, this guy is famous" and "this toy is popular."
"Let's put them together. That'll be hilarious!"
Uh, to be honest, it's the same with just about everything else,
but we'll get to those momentarily.
While I wouldn't call Microshaft Winblows 98 a game,
it does have, quote-unquote,
"games" included.
The first one is "The Roll Ahead,"
an amalgamation of the Bill Gates book "The Road Ahead"
and what you'll be doing in the game.
Which is a stupidly simple board game
where you can pick either Bill Gates or Steve Jobs
to try and... roll ahead.
You roll... the dice and
try to get ahead
while getting random chance cards based on real-life happenings
of Apple and Microsoft.
I guess if you're not aware of this stuff, you're not gonna get the references.
Even if you are aware of it, it's not really amusing.
It's just kind of like, "Oh, yeah, that happened."
And this rivalry between the two is played up throughout all of Winblows 98.
The thing is,
Apple and Microsoft weren't really big competitors at this point.
Frick, Microsoft saved Apple from dying
by investing $150 million
in 1997, the year this was released.
And Apple's products were mostly generic crap
that were barely even competing in the same market as Microsoft's.
Maybe this whole rivalry thing might have been slightly more amusing
fifteen years before or fifteen years after,
but in 1997? Not really.
It's more of a case of "hey, these two nerds were famous for competing with computers in the '80s."
"And now they're competing in a board game!" Haaa haaa.
The next game is "Win Bill Gates' Money,"
which is slightly ripping off the TV show "Win Ben Stein's Money."
Although it plays more like You Don't Know Jack,
where you'll be answering Microsoft and PC industry questions,
asked by a badly impersonated Steve Jobs.
STEVE: I'm your host, Steve Jobs.
LGR: Oh, but he conceited and doesn't like Bill Gates,
so it's funny. LOL-LOL-LOL-lol-lol-lol...
Next game is pinball,
which is the crappiest freakin' pinball game I've ever played.
It doesn't get a chance to be funny.
It's just a pinball game with Microsoft references on it.
I mean, the rest of Winblows isn't funny either,
but this seriously not even potentially funny. It's just dumb.
Lastly, you have "Winblows Exploder"
...which is the crappiest Space Invaders clone I think I've ever played.
You try to shoot down every glitch, bug and virus
that pops out of these error messages,
using the incredibly clunky mouse controls.
It's not fun, it's not funny,
and it handles like month-old butt.
And I don't even know what that is or if it can even be a thing, that's how crap it is.
Now these games are totally pointless,
but believe it or not, there is a goal in Winblows.
The desktop shortcuts on the left-hand side of the screen
can be accessed to be "oh so amused"
by yet more unfunny parodies
of Microsoft and stereotypical nerd culture.
In "Campus Cam," you can watch hidden cameras around the Microsoft campus.
You'll enjoy all sorts of hilarious hijinks,
like MS employees
who have never seen an exercise machine before and think it's an ancient computer.
[goofy chuckle]
EMPLOYEE 1: Hey, I'm getting a display.
EMPLOYEE 2: Yeah? What'd you do?
EMPLOYEE 1: I just stepped on this, uh...
foot mouse.
LGR [mocking]: You know, because nerds never exercise!
And the ONLY thing they know is NERD stuff.
[nerdy chuckle]
Or how about that Microsoft tech support, huh?
Yeah, you know,
'cause Steven Hawking hates those guys–
[stammers] What?!
- Hello, Mr. Hawking.
[computer voice] Don't you hello me.
You smug little twit.
I have had it up to here with your crappy programs crashing my computer.
LGR: You can also watch the MS TV network.
which contains spoofs of '90s TV shows
like Baywatch, Touched by an Angel,
and Star Trek: TNG.
Ugh. And yes, these are as painful as they sound.
- Captain PC-Card,
I have detected an anomaly in our quadrant.
- Explain.
- There is an unidentified vessel 22 km off our starboard bough.
- Hi! Uh, this is Capt. Andreessen of the SS Netscape.
LGR: They're not funny. They're not amusing.
The artwork, it's kinda cool, I guess,
at least if you like that whole caricature style.
Though there is no animation at all,
only still frames and awful dialogue.
There's also the Reject Bin,
which contain ideas that the company rejected for production.
Seriously, this... this...
this is just...
Ugh, it's...
It's mind-numbingly bland!
These are just crappy puns
and inserting another word into an existing thing.
It's not even amusing!
- Buy it now, before we upgrade it again. Bi-atch!
That's "bitch" in rap lingo.
LGR: Lastly, and probably least,
you can read Bill Gates' email and journal,
which contains the same old tired, stupid jokes
that permeate the entire rest of the program!
He's rich, he's a nerd.
Microsoft is a big company, so funny!
There's... nothing more to see here.
So, what is the point of Winblows that I mentioned earlier?
Well, once you watch every single dumb video
and read every stupid journal entry,
you get to decipher punny riddles
from the Shaftbox email program
in order to unlock even MORE crappy parodies of crap.
Do this six freakin' times and you'll finish Winblows 98.
As you're congratulated by seeing Meg and Graham being called into
Bill Gates' offices and promoted.
But not.
But they ARE, but they're really not.
Because Bill Gates is a dick because he's rich and nerdy, am I right, guys?
G...guys?
Guys?
That's it. Game over. What a pile of garbage.
I haven't played any of the other Parroty Interactive programs,
but if Winblows 98 is any indicator,
I, I don't even want to!
I just don't.
Their idea of parody is running a single gag into the ground.
[deep, dumb voice] Microsoft is huge and Bill Gates, he's a rich nerd.
[grunt]
I guess it's technically a parody, but
it's certainly not successfully played for comic effect.
It's not even slightly clever in pointing out Microsoft's flaws back then,
and they were very real.
There's no commentary on the antitrust concerns of the time.
No real commentary on the supposed bad business practices of the company at all,
other than a passing phrase here and there,
like, "Oh, yeah, Microsoft is BAD, mmm-kay?"
Practically every joke and jab in the game could be pointed towards
essentially any other technology company that was huge back then,
and there would be no problems, just switch out some names and figures.
But Microsoft was the huge media target then,
and... had to make their money somehow.
It's a complete waste of time.
In fact, it knows it.
You see that little counter in the bottom-right?
Yeah, it counts exactly how much time you've wasted,
so you'll know, and feel awful about it.
This program freaking relishes in the fact
that it has taken a part of your life away from you that you will never get back.
That's amazing.
Ugh...
You wanna run with very bad word puns, Parroty Interactive?
Well, I'll refer to you as "Failblows" from now on,
because having the word "win" in the title
is being far too kind.