The Music Is Chosen To Encourage Rampaging

It's the mark of a good game where I spend 2.5 hours playing it, think "I'd better save and call it a day", and 2.5 hours later I'm still playing and telling myself I ought to save and quit. Or it's the mark of a game that's yet to start making sense and has really long cut scenes. One or the other.

But I'll discuss Dreamfall: The Longest Journey another day. I've also been playing quite a bit of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City lately. I guess you'd call it playing. I beat the game years ago, and now all I do is drive around, collect money from my various businesses (some of which are even legit*!), and wage war on gangs and buses.

Part of the fun of driving around is being able to listen to music as I go. Typically, I stick to music I transferred from my own CDs to the XBox, but lately I started listening to some of the game's radio stations. Mostly it's been Wave 103, and you wouldn't think pop music (or new wave, whatever) would be a sound that fits a game about mayhem, but it works on me. Part of it is a result of the use of synthesizers, so a song starts, I hear a beat and think it's one song, but wait, it's a completely different song! I think it's "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This", but it's actually "I Wear My Sunglasses at Night"**. There's at least two other songs where the beats make me think it's another tune entirely. At least the station is making fun of it. There are commercials for synthesizers telling you that no musical talent is required to make great music, and one of the personalities for the station says 'Who needs music with soul? We've got drum machines!' Plus, she has a British accent that really works for me.

What? Don't judge me and my love of British accents.

I guess the major issue is the primary DJ, Adam First. Inspired portrayal of a man who thinks entirely too highly of himself. Whether he's hoping you'll enjoy a song as much as he did listening to it in absolute darkness, or saying that the record companies know he will only play the hot underground tracks. Or the prize quote, when he starts off describing it as his most favorite album, and that it hits with 'unprecendented lyrical intensity', the song starts, and he's describing Gary Numan's 'Cars'. The first time I heard that sequence, I nearly drove my motorcycle into a building.

The good news is, it puts me in the mood to go forth and wreak havoc. Bad news, I don't know where that station is, so I can't direct my havoc at the DJ. Not that it would do any good. Blow it to hell today, and it'll be back tomorrow. For all Vercetti's wealth, he's powerless before the design of the game. He can never eliminate the cops, or the threatening gangs, or any buildings that offend his eye. There's a lesson to be learned there. Or I'm talking nonsense. Probably the latter.

As you may have derived from Thursday's post, I'm returning to the Boonies shortly, which means the return of twice monthly comic reviews. It also probably means more video game related posting to fill the time in between. Maybe some more book posting too, if I feel like driving to a book store (sixty miles away). I guess there's the library. We'll see what I can come up with, OK? Perhaps some truly insane bit of inspiration will come along. The Boonies always seem to spur some of that on.

* I think some of them are legit. It's been a long time since I completed the missions to get them up and running. I know I did some nasty stuff to help the cab company, but I think it really is just a taxi service.

** Every time I hear that song I think of Tony LaRussa. Sunny day? He wears sunglasses. Cloudy game, night game, game inside a dome? Sunglasses. He says it's so the other team can't read his eyes and divine his intent, but Tony, it's not much of a secret. If it's late innings, you're trying to figure out how many relief pitchers you can get away with using in one inning. Last season, until mid-July, you were trying to discern how many at-bats you could waste on Chris Duncan before the fans stormed the field and assaulted you both.