Mind Your Own God Damn Business

To those of you that were expecting a new post at 12 AM sharp (i.e. “none of you”), I apologize.

I have an excuse, though.

Just seeing this logo gives me an erection. A g-g-GHOSTLY ERECTION!!! ...Look, it's really late and I'm incredibly tired. I'm sorry. ...BONECHILLINGLY SORRY!!!

My little brother bought the new Ghostbusters video game yesterday, and today he brought it over.

This evening, when I should have been sleeping, writing and exercising, I instead played Ghostbusters with my little brother. Did I say “played”? I meant, of course, “He played the game while I sat next to him and screamed directions at him.”

We started at about 9 o’clock and wrapped things up about thirty minutes ago (three AM). It wasn’t quite as fun as it would’ve been if I could’ve touched a controller, but I still enjoyed the hell out of it.

The Ghostbusters game has a few things going for it.

First of all, I’ve had extremely limited contact with video games for the last six months, eighteen days, three hours and twenty three minutes. My standards at this point are at rock bottom. If you were to sit me in front of a television while someone played Dave Matthews Band: The Video Game, I’d probably be willing to watch it for seven or eight hours, or at least until the level where Dave and Jeff Foxworthy have a jam session with Rob Thomas where they play Creed covers.

Second of all, it’s a relatively solid shoot-’em-up, at least from what I can tell. Certainly not the greatest game ever made, but good enough that I’m willing to spend six hours yelling things like “Turn left. Left! That’s right! You’re turning right! I said turn left!” and “Switch to your proton pack! YOUR PROTON PACK, GOD DAMN IT!!!”

The controls, from what I can tell by watching someone else play it, are pretty solid, the graphics are good enough, and, best of all, the environments and enemies are very destructible. This is an especially nice feature when you’re fighting the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man – every blast from your proton pack leaves a corresponding charred, burning scar across his body, so if you’re the kind of person who finds it incredibly funny to focus all of your firepower on the Marshmallow Man’s crotch when you’re fighting him (and I think that it’s more than safe to categorize my brother and I as “those kind of people”), you’re rewarded with the comical image of Stay-Puff lumbering towards you, his body completely unblemished save for his badly, badly burned nether regions. It’s one of the oldest rules of game design: If there’s no way to mutilate your enemy’s genitals, you haven’t made a game that’s worth playing. This standard dates all the way back to the original Space Invaders, an arcade classic where the object is to fight off extraterrestrials by shooting them in their nards.

Third of all, it’s Ghostbusters.

"Don't shoot until you see the whites of his Twig'n'berries!"

Let me paint a picture for you: Suppose that there’s this movie that you loved as a kid. Maybe you wanted to see this movie really badly when you were a kid, so your Grandma took you to see it in the theaters, but you got really scared when the ghost librarian screamed at the protagonists and so you left about ten minutes in.

Maybe a year later the movie came out on video, and now that you were a seasoned, mature, worldly second grade man, you gave the movie another try and you watched it three times in a row the first day your parents got a copy of it. You watched it enough that you could recite all of the lines from the movie by heart. When you were in third grade, you made a really kickass proton pack (I know, I know, putting “Kickass” in front of the words “Proton pack” is redundant, forgive me) out of painted cardboard because you liked that movie so much. Maybe you and your little brother used the bathroom at the same time when you were little kids and you would constantly joke about “crossing the streams” while you were peeing. Maybe when you woke up after getting your wisdom teeth pulled you said “I feel so funky” about fifteen times.

You really liked this movie is what I’m saying.

Suppose that you also like video games enough that it borders on an unhealthy addiction.

Now, go a step further and pretend that you find out that the movie that you loved as a child is being made into a video game, the writers of the movie penned the script for the game and all of the original actors are lending their voices.

Finally, suppose that your little brother bought that game and brought it over to your house so you could watch him play it.

I think it’s pretty clear that in a situation like that, updating some shitty blog or getting a good night’s sleep is going to be the last thing you’re worried about.

Holy crap I love that movie.

And now it’s 5 AM. Jesus I need some sleep.

Goodnight.