Primordial Dream
So, this is my first pasta. I made it because I REALLY like vidya gaem pasta, but most of its crap. Also, names of the chapters are based on Half Life 2 soundtrack names, mostly because I couldn't think of anything at the time of writing and because the names fit. Pasta title comes from the most ominous track in Simcity 4. Contents provided because I'm fancy like that.
Chapter 1: Living The Dream
Have any of you ever played the Simcity series?
It's one of my favorite series of all time. I remember playing 2000 when I was eight years old. It always ended with me building an awesome city, then my sister coming in and deploying the spider monster who proceeded to fuck up my carefully planned highways. Also destroying 90% of the city. The highways were the worst thing to lose, though. But anyway, back on topic.
A few days ago, I was walking down the street, and out the corner of my eye (bad joke) I saw an old games place. It was one of those generic trade-n-swap places you see every ten seconds in a city, but what was odd was that I swear I'd never seen it before. It wasn't a glaring what-the-fuck feeling so much as it was an odd sense of wrongness as I passed it. I was actually in the market for a Pokémon Yellow cartridge, and while I was mildly afraid of being sold some secondhand piece of crap for fifty dollars that didn't even work, I had been looking all over the place and no store had it in stock. The closest I'd gotten so far was some asshat on eBay who had been promising for two weeks now that he would send me it and that my postal service must be having delays or something. So, I decided to turn around and check in.
From the inside, the place was more generic than it lookded from the outside. The wallpaper was peeling near the floor and patches were missing on the low ceiling. Three rows of red shelves in the middle of the store held old PS2 and Xbox games. There were only a few (like, seven) Gameboy Advance games on the bottom shelf, but that's where I went first. Bomberman, no, Animal Crossing, no, Harvest Moon, no, Super Mario Brothers, no, Simcity 4, n-wait, Simcity 4?
The price was absurd (30 dollars if you're wondering), the box was banged up and grimy and it looked like someone had taken a sharpie to the 4, but this was definitely it. I remembered that I used to also be looking for this one, but I'd eventually just given up and eventually restarted my search (albeit for a different game), so I immediately snatched it up. The clerk was the final piece in the generi-fest, a bored guy with a goatee and a dark shirt. I tried not to touch the black putty of what I assumed was years-old bubblegum on the back of the box as I handed it to him. He scanned the back of the box even though the price tag was on the front and announced that the price was 45.69$. With tax. I momentarily considered grabbing it and running (there weren't any security cameras and it's not like this guy would be of any use to police as a witness-he looked like he'd been shooting up heroin in the back or something) but I just grumbled and fished out two crumpled 20$ bills and some coins. I put the dime I got in return in my pocket and walked out the door with the game in a white bag under my arm and went home.
Chapter 2: Apprehension and Evasion
Fuck.
The game didn't work.
I probably should have seen this coming. After fiddling around with compatibility mode, I got it to work on XP and the game booted up. What surprised me though was that instead of the EA and Maxis intro, there was just a black screen. In a way I was kind of glad -the constant EEEYAY GAYMZ CHALLINJ EVERTHENG and the dead-silent maxis logo intro became incredibly annoying after a while- but this was just strange.I was about to alt-tab to see if it stopped responding when suddenly something flashed on the screen. I couldn't see what it was, but it happened a few more times and I realized it was a city. It appeared distorted though. I just pressed enter a couple times and the main screen popped up. What was weird though was that instead of a blank region with tutorials on various zones, every square appeared to be filled with cities. They were all named really generic names, bloomsfield, blueberg, stuff like that, so I assumed it was just a used game that aforementioned heroin-shooter-upper forgot to wipe. I clicked on one and it seemed like a pretty normal city. I fiddled around with the desirability for a while and eventually got to crime. There wasn't much, it was mostly pie throwing and TP'ing, the only thing that really stood out was the one assault marker near the bottom. I moused over to check it out.
It was obvious that whoever played this game thought like me. I made places for things. Everything had its own personal spot on the map. Industrial was on the bottom, residential took the right side, commercial the west, and everything in the middle was pretty much just parkland and rich people's houses. So when the bottom had industrial buildings and nothing else, it didn't surprise me. What did was that it was mostly high tech; the closest it got to being dirty were some manufacturing places scattered around. I zoomed in on the assault place. It was outside a business and didn't really look like the place people would get in fights. I was about to scroll out when suddendly I heard sounds. It was those stereotypical thwack sounds you see in 80's kung-fu movies when someone is getting punched in the face. I looked down and was startled to see two sims fighting. I knew this was completely out of place, but I kept watching, transfixed. It wasn't really much, just one guy in a blue shirt and one guy in a white shirt swinging their arms from left to right like rockem sockem robots, and I just laughed.
That's when everything went downhill.
Without warning, the guy in white swung back and slammed his fist into the blue guy's stomach. He doubled over and the guy in white did that thing in cartoons where they pick up something and it looks like they pulled it out of their ass, except he picked up a cinderblock. He smashed it into the blue guy's temple so hard that it actually broke in half. The guy with the blue shirt immediately fell onto the pavement. A pool of blood slowly grew underneath his head. The guy in the white shirt looked around twice, then ran away and disappeared, like it was a normal animation.
What the hell.
I knew this was a used game. I knew I bought it from a shady place. That had nothing to do with what I had just seen. I looked for a police station with the intention of dispatching a cruiser (I hadn't played this game for YEARS when I bought it). I found that I actually could, and proceeded to send one to the dead guy. When it got there, I could see the car pulling up, the officers got out and looked around. One of them checked the corpse's body for vital signs. I presume he didn't find one, because when he pulled out the radio, what arrived next was a forensics vehicle, not an ambulance. One cordoned off the area with tape while another questioned the officers. The guy cordoning went back into the vehicle and brought out a packet of something and a pair of gloves. He put them on, then picked up the cinderblock and dusted it. He took it back to the van and put it in a plastic bag. They eventually got into the vehicle and drove back to the station. I didn't see the rest. I didn't want to.
Chapter 3: Hazardous Environments
Maybe this was some kind of mod or something. I looked up to the school. It looked like some people were striking. They held picket signs with things written in simglish and were yelling gibberish. Nice touch, was all I thought. Then it started to get out of control. People were attracted by the noise. Someone started throwing things at the front of the school. First it was fistfuls of dirt, then bricks were being hurled through windows. Trashcans were thrown at the door. Someone came out, the principal I think. A trashcan lid flew like a frisbee and hit him in the face. He was bleeding, I think he had a broken nose or something. I was starting to get genuinely scared. This wasn't normal. I went back to the police station and dispatched some cruisers. A minute later, the yarrived on the scene. They had everything under control for maybe fifteen seconds. The someone started trying to punch one of them. The cop he was attacking got out his pepper spray and held it up, but the guy kept coming. He immediately dropped. clutching his face and screaming. He was handcuffed and put in the back of the cruiser, which, due to the lack of attention, was attempting to be flipped over. All of the cops were yelling for them to stop and one pulled out their gun. When it was on its side, he shot it into the air, sending everyone scattering. Some went just across the street and started smashing in windows. It was complete chaos. People were running everywhere, and I was dispatching cruisers frantically. Suddendly a van pulled up. I think it was supposed to be SWAT or something but the side of the van was the green diamond with white simglish letters underneath. They started firing into the crowd. I remember hoping they were rubber bullets. I don't know why. Pandemonium would be an understatement. Some pulled out pistols and returned fire. More and more vans came, eventually blocking the intersection. They were obviously using lethal ammunition at this point. Teargas canisters were being fired, I think there was a sniper in one of the office buildings nearby and sandbags were being piled. Helicopters moved overhead, assault rifles firing from the sides. People were dropping like flies at this point. I saw in other locations on the map that people were torching buildings. Some were kicking in windows for the fun of it. Imagine the G20 riots, but three times worse. The police started losing. People were running around in gasmasks with AK-47's. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. There was so much blood.
Chapter 4: Triage at Dawn
It stopped.
Not paused, everything froze.
Jump-cut.
A man was sitting at a desk. I think it was supposed to be the Oval Office, but the symbol on the carpet was the green diamond with white simglish, like the side of the van.
There was absolute silence. He looked to be in deep concentration. The camera zoomed in on his face and stayed there for maybe two minutes real time. He sighed heavily, then reached under his desk and pressed something, I couldn't see what it was. A panel opened on what I thought was solid wood. It was an LCD screen with several blue button and a keypad. He punched in a long code, then pressed several buttons. He then entered a different code and a second hidden panel opened. This one contained only a red button.
He looked at it for several moments, then pinched the bridge of his nose, muttered something intelligible, and pressed it.
GAME OVER
The words appear without warning.
I don't know how long I stare at it.
All I know is that I feel an incredible sense of denial.
No.
No no no no no no.
I take the disc and throw it out the window...
Same with the hard drive.
Fuck this game.
Credited to Slademaster
Originally uploaded on June 30, 2011
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