I just finished up Manhunt 2 and given how overwhelmingly mediocre it ended up being, despite all of the interest, I got to thinking about how to best use the lessons learned from that game. After all, games that are hyped to the heavens to then fall short are no surprise in this industry, but Manhunt 2 had a ridiculous amount of prerelease interest. Someone needs to figure out how to bottle that lightning and apply it to other blasé games. Ladies and gentlemen, that someone is me.
The game we’re going to “Manhunt” up as I like to call it is the very unexciting Brunswick Pro Bowling. I chose this game because I personally reviewed it, so I can speak first hand to how it plays. Also, if you can somehow get a bowling game to appear as depraved as a game where you can kill someone with a toilet, then they’ll put you in the Marketing Hall of Fame, right after they remove your soul.
The Title
See? I Told You!
Brunswick Pro Bowling doesn’t exactly give people the thrilling mix of mystery, violence and taboo needed to make your game pop off the future release list. Sure, it’s a bowling game, and you bowl on Brunwsick lanes, but we need a little more flair. Brunswick Bowling in Lanes of Gross, Icky Blood is a step in the right direction but is a wee bit too long. Rockstar Presents Bowling with Sex and Stuff is getting there, but may open the publisher up to some thorny legal issues. Balls of Doom is almost there, but brings up too many disturbing issues of Marvel super-villain genitalia. I think in this case we’ll go with Pin Slayer. It’s short, to the point, and has an air of intrigue about it.
The Politicians
Anybody knows that the easiest way to get people interested in anything is to get some politicians to come out and denounce it. Thankfully, now that all children have access to a quality education and healthcare, and every American can sleep at night knowing that they won’t have to work until they drop dead at 80, today’s politicians have plenty of free time on their hand to condemn video games. All we have to do is call the office of our district’s Representative, or our state Senator and tell them that there’s a game about to be released that encourages children, mere minors even, to hang out in seedy, smoke infested, alcohol providing bowling alleys. If you really want to put the icing on the cake, tell them that their opponent in the upcoming election is a playable bowler. And a communist. In no time flat you’ll have a press conference on your hand and a public denouncement of Pin Slayer.
The Rating
Obviously you’ll have to get an AO rating and end up getting banned. There’s no question about that, however there is a question about how to get a bowling game banned. Unfortunately the ESRB doesn’t even know why they’d ban a game as their game rating flow chart goes something like this:
Is game from Rockstar?
a. Yes – AO.
b. No - consult Larry the Wonder Woodchuck.
What did Larry do?.
a.Scratched behind ear – T for Teen.
b.Threw up last night’s spinach – M for Mature.
c.Humped leg – E for Everybody
As we can tell, it’s possible that our game will end up being rated T or, Lord help us, E, so we have to go that extra mile and make our game absolutely abhorrent, but in a way we can easily change to get the game re-rated. My suggestion is to paste together the audio from every scene of profanity in “Scarface” and overlay it on a video of two copulating llamas and make it your opening video. Say hello to my little friend indeed! Once the game gets an AO rating you can just change the opening video and get re-rated. The ESRB won’t say what changed as most likely, they won’t know why they rated it AO in the first place, and just chalk it up to Larry going on a soybean bender.
