Out of the frying pan, into the SIMULATED COCAINE BUSINESS
I have an Xbox. It is huge. I’m using it as a platform for my Dreamcast. The main reason I got it is that it came with a bunch of software that I wanted anyway, and which on its collective own, even at a discount, would have cost about the same as I paid for it AND an Xbox. What I didn’t realize, though, is that I got a SPECIAL BONUS prize not even mentioned in the auction: ten digital tracks of what I assume is the top of the top of contemporary white suburban trash metal. The person from whom I got the Xbox did not bother to name his custom soundtrack, so I have renamed it “NOOOOOOO!” for my further convenience. Somehow I cannot bear to throw things away (especially if they’re free and special, as this soundtrack so clearly is), so it remains on the drive.
Although I have no clue what I’m doing, I begin to understand the appeal of the recent Grand Theft Auto games. I was vaguely familiar with the first two. They were silly and kind of dumb. Mister Lemming And Company really did something else with GTA3, though. It is hard to wrap my brain around how much work went into the most unlikely details. In Vice City (which, from about an hour’s play, I don’t enjoy as much), I spent more time listening to a seemingly-endless parody of public radio than I did running people over. Now that’s entertainment!
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is… reminiscent of a BioWare game. It is, alas, more contrived and a bit less flexible than I expected, yet the portion I have experienced is not without joy. For its part. I wish I could say the same of JSRF. I did not wish to believe what I had heard — as the trailers made the game seem so pretty! And Hideki Naganuma is not a man to argue with. And the soundtrack contains the remix of Guitar Vader’s “I Love Love You”! I mean. How could the game go wrong? By not being fun, I guess. What happened here?
Well, I know what happened. Or I know how the game feels about what happened, whatever it is that happened. I won’t get into that at the moment, however.
Sega GT is a car game. I don’t understand car games. I set it to play Oingo Boingo while I crash my realistic car all over a series of vaguely attractive race tracks, lose money, and slowly crawl into video poverty. I am sure this must entertain someone.
And. That is all I will say on that matter, for the moment.
Wait, no it isn’t. When I first began to play Vice City, I tried to be a nice guy — and yet I did not quite understand the controls. I wound up punching a hooker in the face. This seemed to excite my mother (who had lingered nearby, out of curiosity) to no end. She yelled at me: “Hit her again! Hit her!” When I complied, this still was inadequate. “There’s another one! Hit her!” I planted my character’s foot into the face of a hooker ascending a flight of stairs. The hooker flew in a slow, steep arc and crashed to the landing below, in a pool of blood. Money scattered everywhere. “THINGS!” my mother cried. “GET THE THINGS!”
…
I’m not sure I have a comment for that.