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Extreme over-use
Never has there been a word more abused in media than extreme. It's been this way since the '80s, when it became just one of many go-to phrases kept on standby for when a sense of excitement needed to be generated in a hurry and finesse wasn't a priority. But while 'radness' and 'tubularity' dropped out of usage during the '90s, for some reason 'extreme' has remained, particularly in games.
Extreme Rise of the Triad | PC | 1995
How extreme is it, really? Its an expansion pack for Rise of the Triad, which was a pretty cool and notoriously gory FPS back in its day. The new levels are a bit harder, but considering that RotT was a blood-drenched game littered with exploding corpses, execution kills, and jump-pads back in 1994, youd have needed to have gone a fair bit further than just harder in order to make an extreme version.
Baby Maker Extreme | Xbox 360 | 2010
How extreme is it, really? Its an Xbox Live Indie Games reproduction of those launch a character, see how long you can make them fly games that were all over the Internet in the 90s. But with a newborn baby being fired out of a ladys spawn-point. Extreme pelvis muscles, but pretty basic game concept.
Nuclear War Extreme | iOS | 2012
How extreme is it, really? Its sort of like a 3D Missile Command, with the player tasked with stopping a barrage of incoming nukes from flattening Earth. So it's pretty extreme really. Though given that thats pretty much just the (admittedly already extreme) reality of normal, common-or-garden nuclear war, maybe its not.
Bloody Roar Extreme | multi | 2002
How extreme is it, really? Depends. Out of context, the idea of people transforming into slavering were-beasts while beating the crap out of each other is pretty extreme. But within the context of a fighting game series built entirely around the concept of said combat-ready were-things, the fourth entry is probably a bit too late to start shouting about extremeness.
NBA Jam Extreme | PS1 | 1996
How extreme is it, really? Not very, Its just the PS1 version of NBA Jam. So a more appropriate title would have been 'NBA Jam: Now With Polygons And A Camera That Tilts A Bit Sometimes'. Still it does go down in history as probably the only game with an officially labelled extreme button. Though it is admittedly just a slightly upgraded version of the old turbo button with a fancy name.
Extreme Paintbrawl | PC | 1998
How extreme is it, really? It's a paintball game utilising the Duke Nukem 3D engine. Badly. As such it's a simulation of a simulation, and a shaky one at that. In fact it's one of the most broken games ever. So broken in fact, that it's tragi-comical. Like cynically laughing at a drunk tramp peeing himself on the bus, and then realising that youre stuck on a bus full of sloshing pee for the next 20 minutes so its not really as funny as you thought. Yeah, this game is that broken.
Extreme Expose It! Bad Bad Doggie! | iOS | 2011
How extreme is it, really? Youd imagine from the urgency of the title and the proliferation of exclamation marks that this is a game containing some of the most dangerous, scurrilous and downright depraved behaviour ever committed by canine. Homes being wrecked. Children being eaten. Whole gangs of dogs roaming the streets, dressed up like The Warriors and intimidating old ladies back into their homes. But no. Its just Qix with some pictures of dogs being endearingly silly hidden underneath the puzzles
Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball | Xbox | 2003
How extreme is it, really? DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball is a (standard, non-extreme) beach volleyball game that doesn't actually involve that much beach volleyball, concentrating instead more on various mini-games featuring large-breasted women in swimwear. So its level of gratuity is extreme, if nothing else.
Grandia Xtreme | PS2 | 2002
How extreme is it, really? Its a JRPG built very much around combat, level-grinding, notable difficulty boosts, and iterative repetition of dungeons. That does make it an extreme version of traditional JRPG gameplay, but being so combat-focused also makes it very light on story. Thus it's an extreme version of only 50% of the format. In purely mathematical terms, that means it breaks even at 'normal, non-extreme JRPG'.
Extreme Bullrider | PC | 1999
How extreme is it, really? Its a pretty dismal bull-riding simulation' in which you waggle the mouse to stay balanced. Aside from being altogether not fun, it runs into the same problem as a few of the games on this list, in that it claims to be an extreme version of an already extreme thing but doesnt add any extra extremeness. In fact, it's so unremarkable that we couldn't even find a screenshot for it.
Don't cross the extremes
So, have we missed any other gross disparities between claimed extremeness and actual, deeply disappointing levels of in-game extremeness? Let us know in the comments. And while we're on the subject of unintentional title-based hilarity, check out Same name, completely different game and 12 movies with the same titles as video games (that are nothing like those video games) .
