A new game called Underworld is available on the iPhone, in which you sell narcotics on the street corner, and the kids are in danger again. The game is apparently causing a stir with parents who believe it is encouraging illegal behavior. Thelma Pickard is one woman trying to stop the game from being released, and I’m sure it has a lot to do with the fact that her 17-year-old daughter Amy fell into a coma after a heroin overdose in 2001. There are already plenty of games just like this, such as Grand Theft Auto in which you kill people and have sex with hookers (sometimes killing them directly after). Is there any chance that there may have been some questionable parenting skills to blame here and not a game that was released 7 years later? I remember playing a game called Dope Wars exactly like this on my TI-83 calculator and I didn’t turn out all that bad. (Those marks on my arm are scars from chicken pox, I swear.) Anyway, I got to thinking: I too could invent some games to corrupt the young minds of Charlotte just in time for Christmas:
The Sims: Epicentre– Players drink Coors Light to keep their avatars energized and collect as many STDs as possible by swapping them with other players. Stand near stairs in case of those pesky pop-up thunderstorms. Getting trampled will lessen your player’s ability to score.
UNCC Stealth Ninja– Touch as many girls as they sleep in Sanford Hall as possible without waking them. The inventor of this game wasn’t very good at it. Two points for the foot, five points for the ankle.
Construction Chaos– Cut corners as you help on the biggest job site in Charlotte. Points are earned for dropping things. Those steel beams will give you a lot of points if you drop them 30 floors, but too bad the school bus you hit was empty, could’ve beat the whole game.
Bob Johnson’s Apathy Arena– Try to get some people to come to watch your basketball team play, but if you can’t find a way then that’s OK, too. You still have that tee time with Michael Jordan in the morning. Tip: Hugo the Hornet doing dunks at halftime was very entertaining and successful. The documentary showed last week about kids in Africa receiving tainted blood transfusions? Not so much.
This article appears in Dec 2-8, 2008.
