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Sim Games for the Successful
by Mark Rosenfelder
Games like SimCity, The Sims, Civilization II, or Age of Empires allow you
to manage a family, a city or an entire civilization. But what if you
already run the world? If you're a lawyer, gangster, Illuminatus,
Freemason, or whatever, you just don't need that sort of success fantasy.
After a hard day's exercising powers beyond the lot of mortal men, you want
to come home to failure fantasies such as these:
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Wino
It's a dysfunctional haze of spare-changing, Thunderbird, and sleeping
in your own vomit...or, in the networked version, other people's vomit!
Get the Gold edition and create your own addiction. The graphics of
the AA meetings are frighteningly realistic.
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Ritalin Highway
A role-playing game where you play a child with ADD or any of six other
developmental disabilities. Trade symptoms and vie for parental attention
with other players! For more challenge, buy the add-ons: Enrichment Camp,
Long Car Trip, or Freudian Child Psychologist!
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Sid Meier's Project Manager
Shepherd projects from confused sales proposals, to buggy, underfeatured
betas, to technical support nightmares. Coax code out of slackers who know
more about the technology than you ever will. Negotiate deadlines with
executives, if you can find them. (Hint: check the washroom!) Time,
money, or features; you can have two--maybe. And for extra points,
surf the web for porn and wack websites!
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Ritalin Highway II: Destination Prozac
You manage a complete neurochemical and affective condition, from initial
childhood trauma, through a stormy adolescence with uncaring parents, and on
to a life of therapy. Can you get through your thirties, and accumulate
enough HMO coverage to pay for the really good meds? Probably not!
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Commuter: The Commute
You've got two hours on the jam-packed freeway, and you need to
fill time. Sip your coffee, read the paper, rubberneck, argue with
the on-air "personalities." Defend the three inches of space in front
of your car by any means necessary! Hunt for alternate routes. (Hint:
they're all full!) And when think you're ready, just try to get through
Commuter: The Commute II: Carpooler: The Carpool!
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Third Party
Lead the minor politcal party of your choice--Pacifist Party, Legalize
Marijuana Party, All-One-God-One-Faith Party, Buying the Presidency
Party--into November futility! Set up on-line polls, campaign
appearances in your wife's manicurist's basement, and other trappings
of self-delusion! But watch out for your rivals, who are gunning for
that all-important number three spot as well!
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