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Saturday, Jul 11, 2009
Sublime fairways, menacing Orcs and a convicted murderer who may well steal your soul. A guided tour through the best -- and most appalling -- holiday video games.
Dec 20, 2003 | "NASCAR Thunder 2004" (Electronic Arts)
Tom: As this loads up, I have to ask: Are we ashamed, at our age, of playing video games?
Jeff: Not completely. I liked video games when they looked terrible. Now it seems like we're living in some kind of golden age.
Tom: Think of the other things we could be doing. Sitting in a bar. Walking outside.
Jeff: Having meaningful relationships.
Tom: Here we go! "NASCAR Thunder 2004." My first thought: Terrible, sub-Korn, alterna-rock soundtrack.
Jeff: I was expecting, at the very least, Kid Rock.
Tom: The default state for when you create your own racer is Florida.
Jeff: Let's not create our own racer. Let's just race. Look at all the racers you can pick from!
Tom: Normally in an E.A. sports game you're selecting from an impressive pool of ethnically diverse young princes. These guys are all Ray-Ban-wearing, sideburned honkies.
Jeff: It says here you can do full races, in real time. A real-time NASCAR race would be what ... five hours? That's just how I want to spend my Sunday -- "trading paint" in a real-time NASCAR race.
Tom: That would be grounds for divorce.
Jeff: I'm taking Ricky Craven in the Tide car. Go Tide.
Tom: I'm going with Jerry Nadeau in the U.S. Army car. So ... now we're racing.
Jeff: We're racing.
Tom: How about that sound? The whine of the engines. It's ... it's terrible. This is what hell must sound like. "NASCAR Thunder"? It should be called "NASCAR Overturned Beehive."
Jeff: They've tried to sex it up with this "rivalry" option, whereby if you ding someone, their I.D. button turns red and they hate you and try to hurt you.
Tom: I've already managed to stir to anger an extraordinary number of drivers.
Jeff: I can sense there's a lot of subtlety in this game, but I suspect most people who play it are not terribly interested in the delicate art of the tarmac duel. They want to run cars off the road and see things explode.
Tom: Which is clearly implied on the back of the game's packaging. That screen shot right there is a car frozen in midflip.
Jeff: Whereas we're having a hell of a time destroying any cars at all.
Tom: This game provides all the excitement of real NASCAR. Which is a big problem, to my mind.
Jeff: This is basically 3-D "Frogger." You're just moving and occupying space.
Tom: "Frogger" with sideburns and a Skoal sponsorship.
Jeff: It doesn't even look that good. The graphics are really grainy.
Tom: Our inability to engage in drive-by shootings or drop oil slicks is a serious flaw.
Jeff: Not to mention the product placement. It's everywhere these days in sports games, but "NASCAR Thunder" takes it to new lows. The back of the car I'm blocking right now says, "See your local Dodge dealer."
Tom: Or don't.
Jeff: I bet you could get really good at this. But who cares?
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004" (Electronic Arts)
Jeff: I was skeptical when the elaborate intro began and showed a kilt-wearing, Roddy Piper simulacrum doing the splits to the commissioned "Tiger Woods PGA Tour" hip-hop soundtrack.
Tom: For some bizarre reason, one of the special "unlockable" players is Cedric the Entertainer.
Jeff: It's strange. But I have to say, based on the create-a-player option alone, this game is amazing. For my character's eyebrows, I can select "unibrow" as a trait. I can give him freckles, a Spanish nose, widen or slim his eyes. I can make his face wide and pasty. Look, I made Eric Stoltz from "Mask"!
Tom: Does the FBI have access to this technology?
Jeff: You can even program his "positive" and "negative" responses. My guy's going to shoot the gallery a peace sign when he performs well.
Tom: You've created a player with no teeth. And dressed him like a junkie. I played a little with my character before you got here, and I'll have you know he has already been approached by Nike to sign a sponsorship deal. You're going to be lucky to get approached by St. Ides malt liquor, looking like that.
Jeff: Golf is in his blood. It doesn't matter what he looks like.
Tom: We're playing a skins game at Pebble Beach. Our computer-controlled opponent is the well-known pro Colin "Monty" Montgomery, who is nicely turned out in his Lloyd's TSB visor.
Jeff: Who is dead, so dead. For such egregious product-placement alone, he's finished.
Tom: I've just shanked my tee shot into the rough.
Jeff: You've got to keep your head down. You're leaning back when you move the controller. Take your time.
Tom: Look at this! The tees have divot marks in them! And listen. Birds, waves. I can practically smell the grass. There's a light mist creeping across the fairway. Unbelievably lovely graphics. And I don't even like golf.
Jeff: The animations are fantastic. My junkie golfer just picked up some grass and threw it to test the wind speed. And you doubted him.
Tom: I have to take issue with these commentators and their Tory accents. "That one was just frighteningly bad." Did you hear that?
Jeff: You need to get your head in this game. Notice how when you zoom in on the hole to figure out the lie, the soundtrack gets all ghostly and Matrix-y.
Tom: And on important shots, you hear a heartbeat, and the controller starts pulsing in your hand. Incredible.
Jeff: Despite the fact that Monty just walked away with the skin, the bastard. Did that commentator just say I sucked?
Tom: Monty's second shot was just ... well, it was devastating. He laid it up right next to the pin.
Jeff: In our lives we've waged battle against worthy opponents, from the fetus-shaped dragons of Atari's "Adventure" to the dumb if persistent ghosts of "Pac-Man."
Tom: We've single-handedly saved bubble-domed cities from nuclear incineration, and we've fought off Darths Vader and Maul.
Jeff: We've established drug empires in "Vice City" and taken them down in "The Getaway," shotgunned zombies in a haunted mansion in "Resident Evil," and gone head-to-head with Kobe and Shaq at Rucker Park.
Tom: I remember.
Jeff: But we have met our nemesis in Colin "Monty" Montgomery. Who just birdied, stealing yet another skin. Meanwhile I'm yards away from the hole, and you, despite your Nike sponsorship, are in the bunker. He's exploiting our shaky short game and tour inexperience. Have you ever felt so humiliated, so humbled?
Tom: Still, I would pass up sex to play this game.
