Black
EA Games
This game expertly preys on the fantasies of all devoted gamers. No, we don’t specifically want to be black-ops guys with ninja clothes and guns from the future and shit. It isn’t about the equipment or the clothes, man. It’s about the lifestyle of sneaking around and not being seen and getting away with shooting people, smashing things, and stealing stuff. In other words, Black glorifies the true dream of every gaming nerd in the world: To be a shadowy, secret wisp of a thing. Sorry, it’s gay but true.
Black is one of those games that everyone has been waiting for. Like you would see the poster at the store, the one with the pile of bullets and the title, and you just went, “Um, yeah. That is exactly my vibe.”
The plot of Black is secondary to what it feels like to play it. You are a lone fuckin’ wolf, but also a misunderstood super-genius, and you creep through the woods and bombed-out towns picking off people with sniper rifles. Are there little between-level movies about terrorist training camps and rogue agents? Yes. But that’s not important when considered next to the fact that the AK-47 has three different firing modes!
Black is not a game. It is a dream fulfilled.
Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure
Atari
This game casts graffiti as a revolutionary tool against a fictional fascist state. Ha ha ha. The featured “writers” include Shepard Fairey, so at least we can be thankful for that, because we never want to miss an opportunity to remind the world that Fairey’s work is fucking AWFUL. If you go to his website it says, “Manufacturing Quality Dissent Since 1989.”
Fuck art-school nerds, fuck “street art,” and fuck limited-edition action figures. The only kind of graffiti writers I like are the kind who carry razorblades in their cheeks, live like degenerates, and have been to jail 1,000 times. The kind who probably want to kill me for writing this.
COLONEL ED SANDERS
