I Totally Framed EA Today
So I'm at my favourite game store today picking up a copy of Metal Gear Canasta, and there's a film crew from CBC there. After I tell them they don't sell Xbox games at arcades ("I only know Pac Man", the reporter told me), they ask me if I want to play Need For Speed on camera for them.
Apparently, a cab driver was killed last night in Toronto by two drag racing rich kids in Mercedes, and the cops found a copy of NFS in the front seat. You can see where this is going.
So of course I pick up a controller, and after making sure to skip the model chick who actually warns you not to do this in real life at the beginning, I choose a Mercedes and ram head first at full speed into every cab I see. We're talking digital cabbie bloodbath here. Cop cars are spinning. Soccer moms in sedans are run off the road straight into trees, parts flying everywhere. Your parents will be horrified; my game playing skills may never have been put to better use.
Unfortunately, they then started asking questions, and the gamer in me couldn't let the Jack Thompsons win. So I said something - which I hope came out properly because between the camera, reporter chick and the game I was a little distracted - about how they'd sold millions of copies of the game but only a couple of jerks were actually going out and doing it, how morons had been drag racing as long as there had been cars, and how no, I didn't feel particularly bloodthirsty at the moment, and I wasn't very likely to go out and try this is in real life.
But the important thing is that tonight on The National and on local Toronto news, thousands of grandmas will see the virtual horror show that is Need For Speed: Most Wanted, and never buy it.
Even better, I made sure it was the shitty frame-fest PS2 version so it won't even be a cool advertisement for the game to psychotic mouthbreathers. If you're in Canada and see some guy in a blue hat & sweater on TV tonight, that's me.
And by sheer coincidence, I even talked some girl who walked in after they left who knew nothing about games out of buying it and getting PGR 2 instead. All in all, a good day so far.
