I was browsing through Instagram reels instead of going to sleep last night and came across this subject
The best way to get in the Cousin Game mindset is to imagine being dropped off in a house that smells different from how you think a house is supposed to smell and you go into a room with a guy who’s like a weird version of you, and he’s playing Nintendo — which you understand — but when you look at the screen, it’s like… What is that?… What the hell is that?
(It’s Iggy’s Wreckin’ Balls.)
A Cousin Game is a game you don’t own, and don’t necessarily want to own. But “Cousin Game” is not a euphemism for “bad game.” There are lots of bad games that are not cousin games.
Here’s a quick list of Cousin Games: Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes Uniracers Rise of the Robots Iggy’s Wreckin’ Balls Operation Winback Coliseum: Road to Freedom Spy Hunter Loaded 187 Ride or Die Bug!
My cousins would never actually tell us the buttons for whatever game we were playing so we’d lose every time. They weren’t very nice people tbh.
Remember this being the first game I ever played where I was aware that it just wasn’t very good. As your character took damage they lost limbs, limiting what you could do which made it easier and easier for the better player to win.
A lot of original Xbox games as my cousin had one, my best friend had one, and I didn’t. Ones that linger in the mind…
Halo - vivid memories of playing the Flood level one New Year’s Eve night
Morrowind - had thus myself on PC but the memory playing the Xbox version and trying to kill every single NPC with our character (I think named Tarquin Shitpants?) immediately takes me back to my friend’s house
Fable
Soul Calibur 2 - me and my cousin yelling “SOOOOUUUULLLLSSSSS” at each other
Another friend had a BBC Micro at his house and I was kind of really fascinated by that to the point that it might have annoyed him - just the noise of it and the really simple graphics and that interface before you load the games up, I was properly transfixed