Hello, Dear Reader. Yes, it’s me again, you know I can’t stay away from you for long. Today we’re launching a new series on Padinga. It’s called “Talking To Games.” In it, we will…uh, talk to games. The title really did the heavy lifting there.
My feeling is, we argue and debate about video games constantly in our daily lives, and yet we often forget to go back to the source, and ask the game itself to give an accounting for its behavior. I mean the game is standing right there while you trash-talk it, maybe it should have a chance to defend itself. Besides, Pocahontas talked to rocks and trees and pretty much whatever she felt like, and if that tree-hugging skank can do it, then so can I.
So come, Dear Reader. Let’s paint with all the colors of the wind. Let’s quiet our souls, open our hearts, and see if these inanimate, soulless trinkets we spend hundreds of dollars on every year have anything to say.
(M=Me G=Game)
M: Hello, there “Battle: Los Angeles,” the new XBLA title.
G: Hey, hey, hey.
M: So, uh…elephant in the room here, let’s just get this out in the open: where in the balls did you come from?
G: I don’t follow you.
M: A day ago, I had no idea you even existed, or that anyone was making you. And now you’re, like, out. Seems kinda sudden, doesn’t it?
G: Oh, you know, I’m with him.
M: With him?
G: Yeah, him, right there. I came in with him.
M: You’re pointing at “Call of Duty: Black Ops.”
G: Yeah, man. You like Black Ops? Huh?
M: Sure.
G: I’m just like that. You should buy me, and not seriously consider the decision. I’m like “Black Ops,” only I got aliens, dog.
M: How are you like Black Ops?
G: You know, Call of Duty!
M: Right, I know, but how are you like Call of Duty?
G: Well you know, I’m like gritty and stuff. Totally gritty, tons of grit. And I got, like, Marines who say stuff like “stay frosty” and “covering fire.”
M: …That’s it?
G: Well remember, dog, I got aliens. ALIENS! You ever see a Call of Duty game with aliens? Yes or no?
M: No, I gue–
G: –BOOM. Buy me. I got aliens. Stay frosty!
M: Do you have multiplayer?
G: Hell to the yes. We have the multiplayers. Like fifty of ’em.
M: What?
G: We have so many multiplayers. Call of Duty, dog.
M: No, I don’t mean “multiple players,” I mean can several people play the same game at the same time?
G: Well I mean they could, but it’d be difficult for all of them to hold the controller.
M: And I see your in-game cinematics are…crudely drawn cartoons that just slide around the screen without moving.
G: Covering fire!
M: Okay. Let me come right out with it here, “Battle: Los Angeles:” I think you’re a quick cash-in rip off of “Call of Duty” and “Independence Day,” and that no one in their right mind should pay money for you.
He takes a long moment to consider.
G: Maybe you’re right. But how am I any different from the movie?
M: Touche.
3 Comments
I like this idea a lot. There should be more.
“Battle: LA” was SUCH a piece of shit. It was so bad that, halfway through it, I left the theater, walked down the street and ate a chicken enchilada at Carl’s Jr.
My friends who managed to sit through the whole thing joined after it had finished, and we all sat around talking about how bad it was.
They didn’t even SHOOT it in Los Angeles!! Most of it was filmed in Louisiana, for tax write-off reasons. I’m surprised Aaron Eckhart didn’t have to wipe Spanish moss off his face as he walked down “Lincoln Boulevard”. I’m pretty sure I saw some gators.
What a turd.
You ate a chicken enchilada at Carl’s Jr? And you survived? Well done, sir.