Staying Alive

I find the vintage board game "Stay Alive: The Survival Game" to be a bit of a letdown. With a name like that, I expected some kind of fun murder mystery with a deep story line and an interesting cast of suspicious characters; something along the lines classic "Clue" or even "13 Dead End Drive" (was I the only one who had this game growing up?). There should at least have been some sort of fictional murder element to a game predicated on eliminating your rivals and winning by being the last player standing. Unfortunately, as the commercial demonstrates, "Stay Alive" turned out to be just an abstract strategy game that involved careful marble placement and turned based elimination of said marbles. Fun in a "Connect Four" sort of way, but where was the compelling narrative? The theatrics? The element of escapism? At least "Battleship" had pieces that looked like actual naval ships.

As contextually sterile as the game may be, the old 70s commercial for the game implies a rich, yet disturbingly dark back story in its brief 30 seconds.

• My initial, overarching question would be: what exactly are these kids doing here? It seems to me that the children are in a "Lord of the Flies"-like situation where they are stranded on a desert island with no adult guidance, free of the social structures and moralities of modern society. They also don't seem to be in any noticeable want of food or water, as they don't appear to be disappointed by the discovery of a washed up board game rather than sustenance. Boredom seems to be the greatest danger on the island. However, I am not willing to rule out the possibility that the kids are delirious with hunger or thirst and are just playing the newly found game for the hell of it, or they just may be idiot kids with stupid priorities.
• As for the board game, I have to note that it is in extremely good condition for a cardboard box that had been indefinitely floating around the ocean. It's totally free of any water damage, loose sand, or accumulated seaweed. All the mechanisms seem to be in perfect working order and none of the marbles are missing. It probably still has its instructions unlike half the board games in my attic.
• The conclusion of this commercial is downright haunting. After a tension filled match, or series of matches, between the four, the winning kid in the hat comes to the shocking realization that he has indeed won by remaining "the sole survivor", at which point he gives a blank, 1000 yard stare and the sound abruptly cuts out as the commercial transitions to a shot of the game box. Has there ever been a more ambiguous reaction given by a winning kid in a board game commercial? Given what I have seen, I can only conclude that the kids were using the newly found board game to make the grizzly determination as to who was to be selected to be sacrificed and cannibalized by the remaining players. Eventually the game comes down to the final two kids and the winning kid earns himself another week or so of desperately staving off hunger, but must also now grasp the disturbing realities of his gruesome acts and the realization that he will now be utterly alone, having truly become "the sole survivor".

The whole premise might come off as a tad dark for a game suited for ages 8 and up, but I think they should have applied some of those elements to color the game. For next week I am calling out the makers of "Crossfire" for failing to deliver on its promise of game play that's as exciting as a one on one death match on flying platforms over the flaming pits of a riotous dystopian fighting arena during a thunderstorm (sounds like an even more badass version of "The Hunger Games").

Picture This!

Just a warning, this may be my most obscure edition of "Picture This!" yet. So, the other night I was hanging out at my friend Matt's house. At one point the topic of discussion turned to vintage shareware games from the 90's and eventually we started looking up videos of them on youtube (well, how did you spend your Tuesday night, big shot?). I found it beyond disturbing that there was space in my brain devoted to remembering and quickly recalling the handful of times I played a profoundly shitty game like "Nitemare 3D" or the hyper esoteric "Heavy Water Jogger" on some cheap 1,001 shareware game CD in 1994 (yet after a week I still cannot retain the name of the guy in the cubicle next to me...priorities I suppose).

While a majority of the games I recalled had more nostalgia value than play value, there were still a few quality games that I remembered based on merit (motherfuckin' "Raptor: Call of the Shadows" represent). One standout game for the period was the vastly underrated 2D platformer "Bio Menace". It was basically a more adult knockoff of the classic "Commander Keen" games, but whole presentation was solid and game play was surprisingly fun if not wholly original.

I also noticed that the protagonist, the derivatively named, Snake Logan (he's the guy on the right if you're not sure) appeared to be the digitized doppelganger of....

The late great WWE wrestling legend, "Ravishing" Rick Rude (of course if it really was based on Rick Rude the programmers wouldn't have denied the ladies the "Sexiest Man Alive" by hiding that bod under a green shirt)

I know, another old school wrestling reference. With the recent passing of the Macho Man, I guess I've just been an old school wrestling sort of mind. Also I wanted to note that while looking for a suitable picture of the Ravishing one, I came across this sweet Rick Rude t-shirt (only 11 more months until my birthday!). Since I was completely surprised last week when somebody actually gave me the custom made Arnold Shirt that I flippantly mentioned as a possible birthday gift (a million thanks again, Desi!), I've come to the conclusion that the internet is a random wish granting machine and that I should be constantly making requests on it.

Innovation

I came across an interesting article in TIME about how a computer scientist at the University of Warwick in England devised a way to modify a Xbox 360, to detect heart defects and help prevent heart attacks. Apparently the powerful computing power of the gaming system provided a faster and cheaper tool for detecting heart defects than the usual supercomputers utilized by current doctors.

When I read this, it immediately struck me as the complete opposite version of those old 3DFX commercials where cutting edge chips and processors are used to play PC games rather than save lives:



Of course anyone familiar with the subpar quality of later 3FDX products would agree that even if they used the technology for medical science, grandpa would still be keeling over at the birthday table. There's a good reason the company has been long defunct. Product quality aside, these commercials were pretty spot on though. Seriously, they're probably about a decade old, but giant tech company ads they are paraodying are still as bland and generic as ever.