Danger Dance

A lot has changed in the videogame industry between Cliff Bleszinski’s work on Jazz Jackrabbit, a game about a large jackrabbit in space shooting things with a giant gun, and his current work on Gears of War 2, a game about a large man in space shooting things with a giant gun. The demographic of the game playing public has expanded and CliffyB (his hip-hop name from the mean streets of Usenet) plans to exploit that.

In an interview with Wired he revealed that one of the goals of the newest Gears of War is to “make it more girlfriend-friendly.” However, earlier, in the same interview, when asked what was new and exciting about the sequel, Bleszinski replied, “It’s being able to chainsaw Locusts from behind. In the taint.”

Asked to elaborate, he said, “You actually flip the chainsaw over and you go taint to throat, and you cut them in half that way.”

When considering this detail in light of making the game more “girlfriend-friendly”, two thoughts come to mind; first, CliffyB has been designing games for a long time. Obviously, he knows a lot of things I don’t about game development. For example, where do I go to buy a Ferrari when I’m filthy rich from my hit game? I have no idea. I’d have to ask CliffyB.

My lack of knowledge also explains why, when he states in the interview that the “actual human story” of space marines in Gears of War 2 will attract the attention of a broader audience, I have no idea what he’s talking about. It might as well be Swahili or a Chinese person speaking English. It’s completely incomprehensible.

The second thought was that CliffyB has never actually talked to a girl before. When an exciting new feature of your game is that you can saw someone in the taint — in fairness, a known alien weak spot — then maybe you’re not really in touch with what the “girlfriend” crowd is interested in. It might be best to just stop the whole insane idea of pursuing them in the first place. Since the main characters of Gears of War look like hormone-fueled teenage power fantasies, why not try to further your reach into the teenagers-addicted-to-Internet-porn market instead? There’s some obvious crossover potential between the two markets, which you’ve only scratched the spunk covered surface of.

As a general note, any product or service that can, in any way, be accurately described with the phrase “taint to throat” is probably not that girlfriend-friendly.