365//365: Day 087 – Shove It…The Warehouse Game (GEN) [Quickie]

During the 16 bit era, we were introduced to a lot of violent, or generally raunchy video games. Mortal Kombat was satisfying our decapitation fetishes, Splatterhouse taught us that wearing hockey masks kept the blood from splashing on our faces, and The Death and Return of Superman made us want to kill ourselves. With all the graphic violence, no one really pushed the envelope in terms of vulgar language or phrases. Well, I want you to Shove It!

No no, I mean Shove It! ….The Warehouse Game!

Alright, there’s nothing raunchy or vulgar about the game other than its name. But can you imagine the holidays, and granny goes into a video game store and says to the associate “Shove It, sonny!”

Shove It! is actually a puzzle game, involving a guy shoving crates onto designated areas in order to move onto the next stage. Sounds simple? Well, it’s far from. You cannot pull crates, only push. If you push it into a corner or area that you cannot advance it further, you have to do the stage over. You can backtrack your previous move, but if you realize you messed up two moves past that point, you’re out of luck. Those that are familiar with Sokoban, or any other puzzle game with a similar premise, will know exactly what to expect.

Simple gameplay, which leads to some complicated puzzles as you progress.

Visually, its unadulterated, with the border of the actual stage holding a simple brick pattern, the crates looking proper and your character viewed from a top down view, like The Legend of Zelda. It’s pretty bare bones, and is definitely one of the most simplistic titles you’ll come across on the Sega Genesis. The music gets quite tiring within 30 seconds, with the same exact song playing over and over. The song its self isn’t an abomination like other one song games, but it does get quite annoying, quite quickly. As for the sound effects….there are none. I guess having a 30 second music loop was annoying enough not to have any other repeated sounds running about.

Shove It! gets pretty complicated as you progress further, even during the first stage. You see a certain pattern shown, and assume it will be easy enough. However, putting that thought into practice, you’ll find that it’s not always as straight forward as you believed it to be. While it makes for some frustrating moments, ultimately, it’s pretty addicting. The one big draw back is that the concept is not new, and has been done a few times before it.

With a name like Shove It!, I could really think of a few disparaging ways to close out the review. Thankfully, it’s engaging enough and enjoyable enough not to tell the game to Shove It! Although you probably played similar titles in the past, Shove It!….The Warehouse Game is still a passable enough time waster, with a name that will get you slapped for repeating.

Greatest video game title ever!

Rating: 6.0