Childhood game. I confess I couldn't finish it, but I played as both boy and girl and I think this is a masterpiece, both historically significant and politically important.
Technically speaking the game is superb: excellent controls, great art, cool maps, intelligent enemies and entertaining gameplay. The bonus games after each boss are on point and awesome.
We laughed at the colorful TV cartoons and cute toys girls used to like, they despised our backpacks, pencil cases and notebooks with flames, cars and skates.
As I played this game during school breaks, boys would cheer every girl I spanked at each bonus battle and when a girl sat down to play, we had to endure silently as she and her friends dressed a boy in ridiculous ways. This game perfectly crystallizes the inner desires of boys and girls at the time and let us express this openly.
Boys and girls always hated each other and sometimes we even fought. Why? Because of two cultures created by an industry and its products targeted at us, so different they couldn't coexist, yet unnatural and artificial.
But we wanted to like each other, a little. How to befriend a girl? Do we have to start liking pop teen music celebrities, dress skirts and use makeup? Or should I expect to find boysh girls around to join our gang? Same questions girls asked themselves: should they become violent and start talking about cars and weapons, or will they ever find effeminate boys to play with?
Today we see men painting their hair pink, wearing earrings and piercings, talking in a soft voice and discussing fashion trends. We see women wearing no makeup, riding a motocross bike, talking harshly and listening to rock'n'roll. All those identity and sexual orientation issues we see people struggling with, all archetypes people trap themselves onto, might as well just be humans trying to reconcile the legacy of what engineers designed inside mega corporations many years ago.
This game is a fun ride through the mentality of children as planned by the industry, and welcomes to a reflection of what the young has become since thereafter, now as adults. What have I become?
