True Crime: New York City
Activision

If you want to know right off the bat whether or not I recommend this game, the answer is yes, OK? God. I have a few reservations, but go ahead and buy the fucker now.

If you’re still reading I guess you want the deets. And this game is all about deets, to the point where it can make you feel like you are losing your mind. The entire borough of Manhattan is re-created block for block, and you have free rein in it. You can grab cars, beat up civilians, shoot windows out, beat up civilians, walk from 116th Street to the Battery, and beat up civilians. Oh, and you can shoot civilians.

The plot is something like you’re a guy who used to be a bad guy but now you’re a cop and your dad is in jail and you have to yadda-yadda. Something like that. Honestly, I tend to skip the little movie parts so I can get back to driving a cop car down Broadway against one-way traffic while blasting Agnostic Front.

You see, all the cars have radios. With many, many stations, all of which are brilliantly curated. You can get AF and Sick of It All on the hard-rock station. A New York cop game where you get to listen to New York Hardcore? It’s the fulfillment of all wishes. The rap station is good too. They have that Big Pun song where he goes, “Something something in Little Italy that didn’t do diddly.” They have the Digable Planets too. Fucking randers. “Rebirth of Cool (Slick Like Dat).” I always skip that one. So you can listen to music just on the radio in any car, but then you can also buy songs. I bought “The Choice Is Yours” by Black Sheep in one of the music stores you can go into. Then I put the clerk in a headlock, pistol-whipped him, and took a bunch of money out of his register. Seriously.

You can choose to be good or bad in this game. Or a little bit good and a little bit bad. So while you’re out there busting street racers or arresting a bunch of people who are demolishing a city bus (still cannot figure out why they were doing that), you can also duck out of the straight and narrow once in a while and extort money from clerks or plant evidence on an innocent person that you’re frisking.

I like the way you can accumulate stuff in True Crime: New York City. You buy guns and a car, and then you keep your guns in the boot. They’re just waiting for you whenever you feel like it. The plot portion of the game moves forward really clearly, the play control is rad, the graphics are nice and noirish, and you don’t want to stop playing. Ever. Which is kind of scary. If I were a lonely, weird, reclusive loser, which I am not, I could see myself developing a weird addiction to this game, which I haven’t. Like you could probably just walk around the streets for hours, going to blocks that you used to live on and seeing how accurate they got them. Not like I did that. Or you could drive around in your car, obeying the speed limit, and just listen to the radio. I didn’t do that either, but I’m just saying.


Lego Star Wars
Eidos

This is fun. You’re a little Lego guy and you run through the shitty three of the six Star Wars movies having lightsaber fights, moving shit around by holding your hand up (it’s called the Force), and flying little Lego X-Wing fighters around. You know who this game is made for? Pretty girls.

My girlfriend is incredibly pretty and she loves this game. You should see her when she plays it. It’s fucking adorable. She bites her lip at this one part where you have to fly your Lego ship really close to a huge Imperial battle cruiser. I have another friend who has a pretty girl for a girlfriend, and she won this game in two days. No shit. Lego Star Wars was tailor-made for attractive girls with semidorks for boyfriends. If you’re having a fucked-up day and you just want to “take five” and not talk to anybody while you decompress, you just hand your old lady this game and she goes, “Cute. Legos,” and then bam—she’s gone for a few hours. But not really gone, she’s just playing PlayStation at the foot of the bed so you know she isn’t out somewhere with someone more fun who has the energy to entertain her.

Thanks, Eidos.



Outlaw Golf 2
Global Star Software

The back of the box says, “Outlaw Golf blows away all other golf games… It’s lewd, crude, and freaking fun…”— Dave Attell.

Man, that depresses me.

COLONEL ED SANDERS