Bears In Games - Super Slash Greek Heroes

Rise of the Argonauts, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Muscle March all get their chance to show off the biggest, burliest, and Greekiest of musclemen in this episode of Bears In Games!

First: Rise of the Argonauts! You think a game set in the Greek era with huge and muscular bearish guys would be easy to do an episode on. Hm. Nope. Mostly I just gripe about the terrible writing and pacing of the cutscenes. The game itself, when there is combat, actually plays nicely. Combat is fun, and the combos work well. Hercules is hot - really hot - but that doesn't save the game from being mostly mind numbing. That's too bad. Also: it breaks! Twice!

Then we have the Batman. Or is it just Batman? After a brief aside in which I mourn the loss of Siren: Blood Curse from my PS3 hard drive, I plow ahead to check out Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham Asylum. Yep, Batman's pretty beefy in this game. But that doesn't make Batman a bear, does it? We take a brief trip through Batman's history to see where and when he can be considered bearish. Other topics come up too, like: I would make a terrible superhero, Bane is sometimes super hot, and lobotomized musclebears, hot or not?

Finally, we close out with the straightest game of all time! After sitting on my Wii's SD card for nearly a month, I break out my copy of Muscle March and record - live - my first five minutes of playing it. It's quite something. The mechanics are quite simple, it just reads the up and down tilt sensors in the Wiimote. But! Muscle men! Thongs! Bears! Gaiety! An opening which looks like a weird mashup of Cho Aniki and Katamari Damacy!

Bears In Games - Street Fighter Mantacular Part 4

Street Fighter IV! And more Street Fighter IV! We end the Bears In Games One Year Anniversary Street Fighter Mantacular by seeing what our favorite Street Fighters are up to now. Plus: a very special montage.

Johnny and Robbie go head to head with some Street Fighter IV action! But, first, Johnny has to admit that he hasn't actually unlocked much in the game, due to the draconian unlocking policies. Which is too bad, because Gouken is totally a bear. Actually, everyone is looking a whole lot more ripped these days, from Chun-Li's Bear Thighs to Ryu's throbbing pectorals. And then there's Rufus. Johnny loves Rufus! He's so pleasantly dumb. And everything is capped off with a look at the cutscenes of Zangief and Rufus, and finally a Bears In Games One Year Anniversary Montage aimed at everyone's favorite gay bear character! Shananana!

Bears In Games - Epic Final Fantasy Extravaganza Part 3

We bring this exhaustive Final Fantasy retrospective to a close! And how! From the childlike characters of Final Fantasy IX to the strangely serious Final Fantasy XII, with a little Tidus, Yuna, JPOP, and Charlie's Angels all thrown in!

Final Fantasy IX brings a sad dose of agreement among Johnny and Max. Yeah, it's more fun when we disagree, but neither of us have any great love for the game. It's not a bad game, just has a slightly off-putting art style. It harkens back to the look of the sprites in the NES era, but gives them a slight tinge of "Tender Moments". And as for bears, well, you've got the Liotta-like Steiner, and... Baku. If you don't mind a pig nose and some sort of mouse ears. Sadly, though, it's hard to find anything really hot when it's done in that art style, that continued into the DS remakes and Crystal Chronicles series.

Final Fantasy X makes Max angry, while Johnny just is ambivalent. It's got a different soundtrack, and charted a course that the last eight years of JRPGs have followed with both graphics and presentation. Oh, yeah, and Fry from Futurama is Tidus. Or Herbie. And it's a fairly bear-free zone, unless you like Auron, Wakka, or Kimahri, all of whom aren't quite in the bear category. Though some of the Besaid Aurochs do actually qualify, specifically Keepa and the one with the goatee. Oh, and the Al Bhed.

If you want arguments, Final Fantasy X-2 is sure to satisfy. Is it a disgusting rip-off, recycling two year old assets into a weird, insulting Charlie's Angels knockoff with bad J-Pop? Or is it a fast paced, light-hearted, and musical journey? Depends on who you ask. But you don't have to look to hard to see some gayness between the effeminate Logos and Ormi. And all those guys we mentioned above are back.

Finally, FINALLY, we look at Final Fantasy XII, and... don't really find much to talk about. There's Vossler, and Cid, and... Baasch, but all those seem like reaching. Everyone is super slim. It is kind of neat that it takes place in a semi-persistant world of Ivalice, previously seen in the Tactics games, as well as Vagrant Story.

So... what's next? Johnny and Robbie are gonna take on something big, hairy, and burly for the Bears In Games 1st Anniversary Special!

Bears In Games - The Gayest 16-Bit Games Of All Time (That Aren't Cho Aniki)

Just what is the gayest 16-bit game of all time? CHO ANIKI! But, that's a bit of a foregone conclusion. And at BearsInGames, we like betting on the underdogs. So we're counting down the top five gayest games during the wonderful era that brought us the Blast Processing of the Sega Genesis, the Mode 7 scaling and rotation of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and the... Johnny Turboness... of the Turbografx-16! Watch in awe as we look at beefcake Boris Vallejo paintings, chubby bear giants in metal briefs, bear thugs with crotches the size of cantaloupes, rescuing Madonna during her Like a Virgin phase, the precursor to Soul Calibur, bad 90s press junket commercials with far too many crotch shots, secret passages into XXL London, the single gayest secret character of any game ever, and the best sprite-based animation you've ever seen! Plus even more Haggar!

Bears In Games Episode 3 - Soul Calibur IV

Just how bearish can a 3D fighting game get? This week in Bears in Games, Johnny takes a look at the custom characters you can whip up in this pretty awesome fighting game. Pro tip: use female character fighting styles to give your bears a slightly creepy seductive edge. Also, some ruminating on Rock, and teaching an XBox Live jerk a lesson.