Developing games for modern consoles usually requires millions of dollars, years of effort, and massive teams of programmers, designers, and artists. But a new feature on Microsoft's Xbox Live service, "Community Games," is providing smaller, independent developers with the tools to write games on tiny budgets -- and to distribute them to an audience that numbers in the millions.
And satirical, politics-themed action game Angry Barry is one of the service's biggest hits. Occupying a regular spot in the top ten ever since its release, it -- in the words of top games site IGN -- "puts nearly every other [Xbox Community] game out there to shame."
Don't mess with the O-man.
Angry Barry puts players in the shoes of Barack Obama, in his pre-presidential days, and makes them fight their way to electoral victory. Not with rhetoric, careful strategy, and public image consultants, but with fists and feet. Along the way, Barry tackles caricatures of Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Ronald Reagan, and an oddly familiar woman in a red jacket who rides a helicopter and wields a sniper rifle. We won't tell you who the final boss is, but let's just say you might need to throw shoes at him.
Creator Aaron McCray traces the game's genesis back to his youth, playing Atari, Nintendo, and Sega consoles, and one game in particular: Bad Dudes, a classic 1988 beat-em-up which challenges players to rescue "President Ronnie" from ninjas.
"Last year, I was closely following the election process; laughing at how ludicrous certain aspects were – every gaffe was blown up ridiculously, partisan memes were created over the silliest things on all sides; it was actually quite entertaining," McCray told us. "Somehow, I got the idea to combine some of the silliest parts of the election season with the classic gaming action of Bad Dudes, and Angry Barry was born."
And the silliest of all? "I’d definitely say the mocking of the ‘Dean Scream’ is the funniest part of the game for me." McCray said. "I came up with an excuse to put the infamous scream in the game, and drew Not-Howard-Dean and yelled into a microphone for quite a while trying to get it right. You’d think I wouldn’t find my own joke funny - but the first time I saw it actually put all together and placed into the game itself, I couldn’t help but laugh."
But don't expect to find heavy-handed political statements tucked into Angry Barry's satire. "For the most part, I just wanted to make people laugh," McCoy told us, although, he admits, the game lampoons the tendency of modern politics and the media to turn everything into "a sporting event...people take their sides and cheer for the team they picked, and in far too many cases, just blindly agree with their side or disagree with the other just because it’s the 'other team.'"
Want to play Angry Barry for yourself? You can find it in the Community Games section of Xbox Live's Game Marketplace -- or check it out on Microsoft's web site, which will let you download either the game's demo for free, or its complete version for $5.Note the content descriptors, though: it's probably not one for the kids.
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Posted: 17 Jun 2009
