By now, all of you should be familiar with Hall 7. For Eliza, it is the mostdelicioussmelling sphincter of TGS. For me? TGS’ stenchingtaintdipped over and over again into my open, paralyzed mouth.
As a summary: Eliza and I have been exiled to Hall 7 through a strange conglomeration of our own arrogance and Nick Chester’s casual homoerotic appeal. While Dale North and that bastard Chester flitter back and forth betweenHalo 3,Devil May Cry 4,Metal Gear Solid 4andDark Love, Eliza and I are wildly gesticulating our inept pidin interview questions at a bunch of mentally-handicapped game design majors fresh-out of Tokyo’s local cut-rate technical schools.
But we’re simply not going to take Chester’s crap lying down. Our resolve? To reviewevery last gamein Hall 7. And in the cess pool of laziness and abject incompetence? We will find a sparkling diamond, crapped out by the sphincter of Japan.
Unfortunately, you will not find this rough, fibrous diamond in our first Hall 7 review, the mystically titledRoad to Myself.
Naturally, the first thing that strikes the seasoned game journalist aboutRoad To Myselfis its title: a Freudian jumble of words that is frankly impossible to parse without invoking the right-handed specter of chronic masturbatory addiction. But surprisingly, the game’s not about jerking off at all. The more the pity. When the Wii finally incorporated wild, flailing hand gestures at crotch-level into the control dichotomy of first-tier gaming franchises, I was absolutely positive that my passions for both jerking it and gaming were about to co-align. Instead? We get games likeChicken Shoot, a game so degrading to play that masturbating over your mother’s grave seems a prospect only half so filthy.
Anyway.Road to Myselfis a terrible disappointment, not simply to gaming sophistication, but even to the wild bell curve of Hall 7’s parabola of competence. Instead of the engorged, auto-erotic phallus I half-expected from so Freudian a title? I got the avatar of a paper airplane. Instead of a Wiimote? Iswear to God, an old-school Genesis controller, with three lame buttons instead of the usual six.
Luckily, as you can see from the title screen above, you don’t need six buttons… only “A “button. And when I pushed it? What I roughly discovered was a paper airplane simulator trapped well within the designatory confines of a Nazi-lessWolfenstein 3Dmaze.
Look, there’s nothing much to say about the mechanics of the game. As you whisk through this two-dimensional first person maze — itself entirely compresedof 90 degree corners incorporating a flat angled maze — you inevitably close upon a wall in front of you. Quickly pressing right on the Genesis’ D-Pad moves you right. It’s as simple as that. There are no obstacles. There is no subtlety or skill. It is a choose your own adventure game, in the trappings of aStarfox-like first-person racer. You simply make 90 degree turn after 90 degree turn until you finish all of the laops.
But I’m not going to lie to you, oh, my deetoid droogies. These reasons were not why we ultimately lovedRoad to Myself. It was in its Engrish that we found our adoration. Perhaps this screenshot will sum it up best:
As you can see, there is a palpable sense of accomplishment inRoad to Myself. Though I have not yet managed to beat myself off to orgasm while playing it, I have somehow managed to lay downthreephat raps,threemad rhymes. All in less than a minute and a half! And as I pull my pants down to my knee buckles and begin singing the lyrics to NWAs “Real Niggaz Don’t Die?” It never once occured to me that the Japanese wouldactuallymistake “rap” for “lap.” It’s the sort of grammatical mistake inherent only in the World War II era racist cartoon.
But that’s the Hell of Hall 7 for you. Watch for our next exciting preview tomorrow: Watermelon Studio’s budget RTS title,Brack Sordiels.
—Florian Eckhardt runsEctomplasmosis, a fringe art and culture blog, with his co-editor, Eliza Gauger. Two days into TGS? Ms. Gauger has already sunk into a routine of refusing to talk to him between the hours of 7pm and 11:30pm, after which time she suddenly becomes jovial again. Unsure about what to do about her cyclical contempt, Florian is willing to consider all trades, no I.O.U.S. Caveat emptor: she stainseverything.
