perspective shot of the house

peter is sitting on the couch, typing on his laptop
Brian: "Hey Peter what are you doing"
Peter: "Oh hey Bri, I'm reviewing our video game on this neat website, it's so freakin' awesome"
Brian: "Sure, but don't you think writing about your own work would come off as a bit narcissistic"
Peter: "No way, internet celebrities do this all the time. Just like my distant cousin and soulslike v-tuber, Ashley Griffin"
cutaway to Ashley Griffin
Ashley Griffin: "Rap isn't real music"

perspective shot of the house

peter is again typing on his laptop, but is now laying stomach-down on the couch and swinging his legs back and forth while twirling his hair through his finger
stewie walks in
Stewie, chuckling: "Well well well, somebody must be making breakfast 'cause I see an egg cracking!"
long pause
the camera gets a close-up of Stewie
Stewie, looking at the camera with a straight face: "That was a gay joke."
another long pause
the doorbell rings
Peter, yelling towards kitchen: "Hey Meg, make yourself useful and get the door"
Meg: audibly makes this noise
Peter: "Shut up, Meg"
meg falls over and remains there for the duration of the scene
lois answers the front door
Lois: "Well, you must be Cyndi Lauper!"
Cyndi Lauper: "Hello, Lois. It is I, Cyndi Lauper, from 'that one music video your parents won't stop streaming to the tv while guests are over' "
peter walks on-screen
Peter: "What's goin' on""
Cyndi Lauper, hands on hips: "Peter, I'm here as a representative of the Lotta Paragraph Games Committee, and we've been receiving some very unhappy messages about your so-called 'review'. Many of our group chat members say it's in poor taste"
Peter: .
Lois, laughing nervously: "Ohhh, I'm sure it can't be that bad,"
Lois, now with a straight face: "Trust me, I know Peter and poor taste"
cutaway to peter sitting in a high chair wearing a bib. Lois is angrily feeding him peas on a spoon
Peter, crying: "I don't wanna! it doesn't even have any Styrofoam marshmallows shaped like my morning cartoons!"
Lois, fuming: "You'll eat it and like it!"
cut back to scene
Cyndi Lauper: "Now, it's perfectly reasonable to be defensive about it, but that's the group consensus going around"
Cyndi Lauper, whispering to Peter: "I even hear them calling it pick-me behavior"
Peter, gasping: "What??? Pick-me behavior??? That's ridiculous! I haven't done anything of the sort! Well, not since high school, anyway"
cut to joe, cleveland, peter and quagmire, in high school, sitting at, each holding a glass of milk
Joe: "My glass is half-full"
Cleveland: "My glass is half-empty"
Peter, doing pensive emoji face: "My glass feels like everyone treats them like a ghost and wishes they would invite them to parties and give them free affection but it's ok it's not really bothered by it it's just venting :("
Quagmire: "My glass is still warm! Giggity giggity giggity giggity!!!"
cut back to scene
Cyndi Lauper: "Well I'm sorry, but if you want to give a better impression to those people, you'll have to put up a new review expressing how you really feel"

shot of the clam

peter, joe, and quagmire are sitting at their booth
Peter, looking at the camera, unimpressed: "Cleveland isn't here with us today so I'm going to say something racially insensitive. Seth will not comment about this for the next 20 years, then reply to a callout tweet about it with the 'clenched teeth oooooh' reaction gif"
Quagmire, looking at Peter: "So Peter, you're saying these guys are upset at your review"
Peter: "Yeah, they say it's not a real review and it's just me bragging about me having my own game"
Joe: "Well Beter, if I were you, I'd update it to include a lengthy manifesto about the idiosyncrasies between our show's cutaway format and the sequential structure of game
Quagmire: "Or you could be like me and name all the characters you wanna bang!"
Peter, excited: "Hey, that's a great idea!"
Joe: "Which idea, the uhh, my idea or the other one"
Peter, now straight-faced: "The other one"
Joe, looking downwards: .

sweeping shot of guadelahara

cut to stewie and brian eating granola and sitting on a rock
Stewie, chewing: "This is the B-plot where we try to make you forget we don't have any other gags about gamer culture"
Brian, also chewing: "I read yaoi during the cutaways"

Two more plot-threads occur over the next 15 minutes, entirely unrelated to the first.

The best thing I can say for the rather terrible Polar Express video game is that you're always doing something different over the course of its disappointingly (or mercifully?) short runtime. Whether I was tossing toys at evil puppets led by the villainous Ebeneezer Scrooge puppet to get children's lost tickets back, playing a rythym game to serve hot chocolate to the passengers (why did this remind me of Parappa the Rapper?), or platforming around in Santa's bag of presents, I can't say I was bored.

This game still leaves a lot to be desired, with horrible presentation that makes the movie's character models look like the greatest CGI achievement ever by comparison. There are too many cutscenes stringing together the short gameplay segments with comically bad voice delivery, but fortunately you can skip all of them. There are also some difficulty spikes which will definitely give the young children this game is aimed at some frustration- I think the skiing level in particular is far too long and demanding.

But you know what? I had a slightly good time playing this again on Christmas Eve and laughing at the weird translation from movie to game. I think some thought really did go into some of these levels, even if it's very near broken. I am improving my rating from 0.5 to 1 star. Still do not recommend.