Backyardigans PS2 Game

Hey. Some of you may have heard this story from TheShadowReader. I'm the original author, but it got deleted so I decided to rewrite the story with a different ending. So please enjoy.

I have always liked Nickelodeon as a whole. While I didn't really enjoy baby shows like Max and Ruby and Wonder Pets and all those things, I enjoyed shows like SpongeBob SquarePants, Big Time Rush, iCarly, etc. My niece loves Nickelodeon too. She really loves The Backyardigans. She watches every new episode, plays only with Backyardigans toys, and even had a Backyardigans birthday party.

In December 2009, it was 2 days before Christmas Eve. I hadn't gotten my niece a present yet, which made me feel like a total jerk. I thought of some ideas but realized. She has almost everything Backyardigans related you can think of. Unless... what if she had a PS2 game? Now I was skeptical about this at first because I was thinking a million questions. What if she broke it? What if she doesn't even want to play it? What if she already has it? But I was desperate for a solution. I drove to Walmart to see if they had something. Since Backyardigans was such a huge phenomenon I figured they'd have to have something so huge. I searched the video game aisle before asking an employee. They told me they didn't have it.

I didn't want to waste my time driving around for something that probably doesn't exist. So cut to the chase, I looked on Amazon, I couldn't find anything related, just the Nintendo DS game and some DVD's. I looked on a few other stores before this resulted me using eBay. Now I've never used eBay. I think it seems pretty shady, but like I said I was desperate for a solution. Only one result came up, but it was the video game! It had many pictures of the game and overall it seemed pretty legit. One thing that kind of creeped me out was how it was in the same city that I was in. It arrived the next day and I wrapped it up, put her name on the tag and that was that.

Fast-forward to Christmas day. My older brother and my niece come over for Christmas. We all opened our gifts and talked and thanked each other. When she opened the gift, she was super excited, she jumped and squealed and got so happy. "Thank you! Thank you, Uncle Lucas!" she exclaimed. She immediately wanted to play it so I put the disc in my PS2 and showed her how to use the controller and how to play the game. I told her whenever she and her dad visits she can play this game. After a few minutes or so I left her in my room so she could play the game. I went back into the living room and talked with my brother and my other relatives that came over.

From the other room, I heard her laughing and it seemed like she was having fun so I didn’t think much of it. Later, me and all my relatives we were going to the dinner table to have lunch. My brother called my niece from my room, but she didn’t come out or even speak. He calls her name again and she slowly got out of the room shivering. She seemed pale, she flinched at the slightest of sounds. “Dad… what’s wrong with the Backyardigans?” she says to my brother. “I’m sure it’s nothing.” He responds, picking her up and comforting her. While we walk to the dinner table, he gives me the angriest look and whispers “What did you do to her?”. “I didn’t do anything! It must have been the game!” I say back. The whole time we ate she just looked so sad while my brother gave my dirty looks across the table.

When lunch is over, I kept talking to my relatives with a pang of guilt in my stomach. What did I do wrong? After a while I go back into my room and put the disc in the system and wait for it to load. The theme song is playing, everything seems normal until I saw something that made my want to turn it off immediately. Tyrone was beating up Uniqua and Tasha was beating up Austin, and Pablo was yelling trying to get Tyrone and Tasha to stop. I was deeply disturbed by it. But I continue. There were 3 minigames you can play so I choose the first one, it was based off the episode “It’s Great to Be a Ghost!”. In this game you could choose if you wanted to be a ghost as any Backyardigans. Not really caring which one I chose Pablo. The objective of the game was to play basic hide and seek. It was pretty easy to find Austin. But then when Pablo found Austin, he pulled out a knife and stabbed Austin. He let out a blood curdling scream, then the image showed Austin realistically with wounds and stabs everywhere on him. I couldn’t believe what I saw, I was in shock. Distracted, I jumped when Pablo said “Great job!” in a demonic voice. Then the next objective was to find Tyrone.

I shudder and exit the first game. I clearly knew what was going to happen in the next game. Some innocent, friendly Backyardigans game, turned into a sick, twisted, horror film scenario. Who would do this? Regardless, I continue to play the second game. The next episode was based off one of the very first episodes “Pirate Treasure”. The objective for this game was to steer the pirate ship using the controller. I do pretty well for a while (considering it’s a kids game) but then when I accidentally mess up, the ship flips over and all the characters drown. Screaming, choking, gasping for air.

The first game already made me super uncomfortable. But this made me sick to my stomach. I turn the video game and eject it from the system. I realize that the package came from the same city I was in. It could only mean this was intentional. I try to contact the eBay seller but they don’t reply. I try to contact the creator of the Backyardigans, Janice Burgess, and she doesn’t reply either, I end up burning the disc and forgetting about it. As for my niece and my brother, we eventually forgot about the incident and never speak about it. My niece stopped liking Backyardigans and watched shows on Disney like Hannah Montana and Phineas and Ferb. So moral of this story, stay away from any anonymous sellers that sell obscure video games. Seriously.