Elian Gonzalez: The Game!
RealSoft
It appears that the video game powers-that-be have decided that it's
FINALLY long enough after the Columbine shooting for them to start
releasing new first-person shooters where the targets are actually people
and not those lame zombies they have in "Resident Evil 2."
Those of you who have long grown tired of "Doom," "Quake," et. al. can revel in
what may be the most challenging first-person shooter yet to hit the market.
Unlike those other, simplistic, bloodlust-driven games, the object of "Elian
Gonzalez: The Game!" isn't to run through a maze, mindlessly plugging away
at henchmen that go down with the first shot. Instead, it's to pick your
way through the streets of Lazaro and Marisleysis Gonzalez's Miami neighborhood, find your way into
his home, and free him from Marisleysis' evil clutches. Before anyone else
does.
And you have only a rifle, 10 bullets and tear gas with which to do it.
And what's more, the little bastard's armed!
The trick here is to take down Elian without killing him. Usually a shot to
the knees works fine, but you'd better hope he doesn't duck because if
you're so unfortunate as to plug the itsy bitsy immigrant, you have to face
Janet Reno, a tough final boss who makes hitting the Death Star on "X-wing"
look like taking down a "Resident Evil" zombie with a rocket launcher.
Suffice it to say, no one on the Flak staff has bested Reno. We're
beginning to suspect that fleeing the aggravated attorney general is the
best tactic.
Elian Gonzalez: The Game! does for the Elian Gonzalez saga what Dark Forces did for
Star Wars.
However, the game is plagued by the cinematic sequences popularized by
Playstation's "Resident Evil 2." Who wants to sit and watch a mini-movie of
Donato Dalrymple scooping Elian off of the floor and running for cover? As
if we all didn't see enough of that Saturday on Fox!
To put things in a larger context, though, "Elian Gonzalez: The Game!" may
just be the first in a long line of phenomenal, reality-based, first-person
shooters. RealSoft, previously known for making mattresses for the hotel
industry, has announced plans for "OJ Vs. The Real Killers," "Tito's Heroic Yugoslavian Struggle Against the Ustasha" and "Monica: Shoot to Thrill."
The new golden age of computer gaming has begun.
— Tyrone Slothrop
