A playthrough of Acclaim's 2001 simulation-style arcade game for the Sony PlayStation, Power Shovel.

Played through the arcade mode on the standard difficulty level.

It certainly seems like an odd concept for a video-game, but then, Taito was never averse to being a bit strange. They can seemingly apply their brand of quirkiness to anything and somehow make it work, and have managed it yet again in Power Shovel - a... construction site simulation? A test-case to see how many inappropriate ways one might use a "power shovel"? I dunno, it's better to just go with it.

Power Shovel has you going out to different jobs, typically revolving around one of three activities: 1. Move from point A to B. 2. Pick stuff up and put it down somewhere else, and 3. F*** s*** up with your giant yellow tractor. I have to say, #3 is usually my favorite, but the activities here are so odd it's hard to find time to *not* be entertained.

Over the course of the game you'll scoop up turtles from one pool and put them in another (I don't know how that saves them...), whip up curry dinners, destroy a stretch limo, and run a cash-register. Before you can capably do all this, though, you'll have to wrap your head around the controls. The controls are excellent, and allow you full control over every aspect of the shovel, but they are quite complicated. They use every button on the PS1's controller, and you probably won't pass many events at all until you get them down. When you do, though, it's an absolute blast.

Finally, I wanted to reaffirm that this is indeed the US release of the game. There is a lot of Japanese text and speech that was left completely untranslated, and while it's not necessary to understand it, it seems a bit strange when most games released in the US rarely have any Japanese left in them after the localization.

I totally recommend Power Shovel. It's genius on the same level that games like Incredible Crisis (also on PS1) hit - it's so goofy and so Japanese that you can't help but be fascinated by it, and once it has its hooks in you, it won't let go too easily.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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