Ready, Player One?
How to start a review of "Ready, Player One" without saying (repeatedly)...
................................................Simpsons did it?
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
and South Park
and American Dad!,
but Simpsons "did it" in an episode which Marge joins an online gaming community consisting entirely of avatars of Springfield residents. It soon transpires that the online fantasy role-playing version of Springfield is terrorised by a particular player. Of course, that player is Bart.
When Marge's character/avatar is killed, Bart gives his avatar's life force to resurrect her. Of course, his reign of terror is soon over when the residents of the fantasy Springfield join up to eliminate their, now weakened, spiky-haired oppressor.
South Park "did one" in which the boys (and Stan's dad) try to take down a cheating, unbeatable World Of Warcraft player.
But "Ready Player One" 's plot of beating the game, finding the Easter Eggs, become a multi-billionaire-and a world obsessed by a fantasy world based on 1980's pop and geek culture references-is almost a straight port of Iain M. Banks' "Player of Games".
Beat the game without dying (for real) and become Emperor of the Azadian civilisation.
But what would I do if I won the novel's $360 billion?
1. Hide
2. Rip off "Live and let die" by flooding America with free heroin and crack cocaine
3. Build a massive bunker
4. Carpet bomb sub-Saharan Africa with condoms
5. Buy up all the world's armaments factories-especially the ones which produce ammunition-and immediately demolish them!
For the purposes of 1 I would do 3.
The result of 2 would (hopefully) mean an end to drug-related crime and violence and dealers being pushed out of business.
................................................Simpsons did it?
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
SIMPSONS DID IT
and South Park
and American Dad!,
but Simpsons "did it" in an episode which Marge joins an online gaming community consisting entirely of avatars of Springfield residents. It soon transpires that the online fantasy role-playing version of Springfield is terrorised by a particular player. Of course, that player is Bart.
When Marge's character/avatar is killed, Bart gives his avatar's life force to resurrect her. Of course, his reign of terror is soon over when the residents of the fantasy Springfield join up to eliminate their, now weakened, spiky-haired oppressor.
South Park "did one" in which the boys (and Stan's dad) try to take down a cheating, unbeatable World Of Warcraft player.
But "Ready Player One" 's plot of beating the game, finding the Easter Eggs, become a multi-billionaire-and a world obsessed by a fantasy world based on 1980's pop and geek culture references-is almost a straight port of Iain M. Banks' "Player of Games".
Beat the game without dying (for real) and become Emperor of the Azadian civilisation.
But what would I do if I won the novel's $360 billion?
1. Hide
2. Rip off "Live and let die" by flooding America with free heroin and crack cocaine
3. Build a massive bunker
4. Carpet bomb sub-Saharan Africa with condoms
5. Buy up all the world's armaments factories-especially the ones which produce ammunition-and immediately demolish them!
For the purposes of 1 I would do 3.
The result of 2 would (hopefully) mean an end to drug-related crime and violence and dealers being pushed out of business.
Labels: American Dad!, games, Iain M Banks, Ready Player One, Simpsons, South Park
posted by Legal Smeagol at 9:44 AM
