Cousin Games

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!

What are your cousin games?






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Uniracers was very much fun indeed! I am your cousin?

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Love this

Mine were all games that I wanted, though. Alex the Kidd, Tekken, Ballz, and for many years Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2.

Oh and No Mercy


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Something about this reminds me of I Saw the TV Glow

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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.

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We had uniracers but I’m sure it was called unirally?

Must be a US vs UK thing, but I can’t imagine why

Not sure if these count but they were the first things that sprang to mind.


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Always wanted New Zealand Story!

I think if my cousin was asked about mine, he’d say



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I was called Unirally!

It was racing an unmanned unicycle without the need to steer and 99% of player interaction was just doing jumps/summersaults!

Doesn’t really work on paper does it? I really, really liked it though. It was both fun, and also soothing.

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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

Destruction Derby on the PS1, and Felony: 11/79.

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Yeah I loved it too. Really satisfying doing the little spins and stuff, chaining them together to get combos

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Literally never heard of this

They had an N64 and we didn’t, so Mario and Luigi are my cousins basically

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so fucking good. was like GTA 3 on the PS1, if my memory serves. Edge gave it a 7.

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FF7 started out as a cousin game for me, but I almost immediately begged for my own copy, so it didn’t stay that way for long.

Fumbling through the reactor bombing mission on my cousin’s PS1 at maybe seven years old is such a fond memory.

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Don’t know if I quite got this right but these immediately came to mind





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