Midway's Controversial NARC Update Ups Drug Intake

Thanks to IGN PS2 for its hands-on preview of Midway's PS2/Xbox action title NARC, an update of the classic '80s anti-drug arcade title of the same name. This game, which Game Informer notes has been "built on VIS Entertainment's State of Emergency engine", takes the "good cop/bad cop" gameplay concept to an extreme, as GameSpot explains: "You'll actually be able to use the illegal drugs you confiscate throughout the game. In fact, they'll actually give you short-term benefits." The drugs include "pot, speed, LSD, crack, and the newly invented Liquid Soul", and effects vary - for example, IGN notes: "Smoking marijuana in NARC slows time down and makes the screen blur, but also gives incredible focus", and GameSpot mentions: "Dropping acid fills the screen with crazy colors, but it also gives innocent citizens large jester heads while giving criminals large devil heads, for easy identification." But GI also cautions: "By taking one of the addictive drugs... the controller vibrations will get longer and longer until the player will literally have to fight to keep the shakes at bay."

Comments

Irony is alive and well

[Operating Thetan]

Upon clicking the link, I was greeted by a freevibe anti-drug advert

WooHoo!!

[Creepy Crawler]

Screw "Bullet Time"

Gimmee my weedtime, cracktime, and lsdtime ;-) oh my.

Sweetness!

[Mr. Darl McBride]

I'm glad to see that Midway is finally making kiddie games again. I really enjoyed Bubbles as well. They must have been on all kinds of drugs when they made that one.

Devs must have had fun

[nacs]

I wonder how much hands-on "research" the developers did for this game? ;-)

Re:Devs must have had fun

[Anonymous Coward]

As one of the coders working on this title, all I can say is not enough :)

Although I can't be sure about the rest of the team ;)

Re:Devs must have had fun

[LittleBigLui]

They are geeks. They didn't take all those drugs themselves, that would have been way too much boring, repetetive work. They constructed a translation program that takes as its input chemical formulas and outputs perfect C Code for either OpenGL or DirectX.

Of course, for regression testing and debugging, they had to throw a few parties for every build. And because it was developed in a Continuous Integration process, there was a lot of testing. And because of the parties, there was a lot of debugging. Actually, it was kinda recursive. Like in that song, "Smoke Two Joints":

I smoke two joints before i smoke two joints /

and then i smoke two more.

Yeah, like anybody would bother to read through that much text just to mod it "+1, Funny".

Been there done that.

[Anonymous Coward]

But not everyone has played Rise of the Triad. Ahh Shrooms. Normally annoying if encountered in the game. Often fatal if you encountered them just before a bunch of enemies.

But then there was "that one" secret level. All shrooms and trampolines. I think it might have been called The Vomitorium. And if it wasn't, it should have been.

Options

[Lord_Dweomer]

So when are they going to make a game JUST about doing drugs? I don't really want to play a Narc. I just want to exist in 3D in a MMO city with a similar feel to GTA, and I want to be able to take drugs in various forms and just go about my day.......drive to work.....go to school.......etc. Things I'd never do under the influence in real life.

Awww heck, what am I saying, I'd get baked before playing.

MunchieVision(TM)

[rufo]

Apparently Midway's still trying to figure out how to force you to make Taco Bell and Hershey bar runs every few hours...

Re:MunchieVision(TM)

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw that!

This game is developed in Scotland, so it's Irn Bru and good old Cadburys :D

Thankyou-Thankyou

[angryflute]

I wonder if anybody will come up with a crack for this game?

Re:Stop for 1 moment

[Anonymous Coward]

We are actually more concerned with the player taking behavior modifying (and potentially addicting) substances than with a major part of the game's premise, which is for the player to kill or harm other humans in the game. Somehow killing people isnt as bad as taking drugs...

Pah... murder, drug abuse... petty crimes, hardly worth getting worked up about. You wait till someone makes a game about a serious threat to law and order, like kids sharing music, and see what sort of public outcry there is then.

Re:Stop for 1 moment

[jx100]

Are you kidding? the inventors serve *humans* at the dinner table!

How about some realism?

[ttfkam]

Cop smokes Pot, heads on over to the local convenience store to grab some munchies, sees a robbery in progress, arrests the guy, continually says, "Hey dude, just chill out man. It's no biggie," buys some twinkies and cheetos, and leaves *without the perp*. (Dude! I totally spaced.)

Cop drops Acid, sees someone with a devil's head. But was it really a devil's head? How would I recognize a devil's head if I saw it? What is so evil about a devil's head? I mean, I don't even go to church often. It's bullshit. This whole Judeo-Christian thing is just out of control. It brainwashes people. Wait... Am I brainwashed too? No way. To question is to be sane, right? But is sanity mutually exclusive to brainwashing? Brainwashing. Like with soap and water? What would that do? I mean. It might hurt. But would it clean your thoughts...y'know...if you could do it right? How would you do it right? Just be very careful. Very very careful. Very very very careful. Okay, gonna clean those thoughts when I get home from work. Okay, back to the grind. Back to work. Hey! That guy has a devil's head. But how would I recognize a devil's head? ...

And where's the alcohol? Cop drinks a bunch of shots, and suddenly "everyone" wants to start something. You want some? You want some of this!?! Get over here ya fucking punk! I don't give a shit what you said. You calling me a liar you little...? What's up! Get in the fucking car!
(1 hour later)
What Chief? No! They guy was getting in my face. Hell no I didn't do that to his face. Witnesses my ass. I would remember doing that. No! All I'm saying is...

-----

In other news, "the shakes"? From Pot and LSD? LSD and Pot are physically addictive? Since when? I don't know about anyone else, but after 10-12 hours of an LSD, I am more than done for the duration.

Next up on the remake block: Bad Dudes

[bluemeep]

Instead of being a bad enough dude to rescue the president, you can be a [i]badder[/i] dude, sock ol' Ronnie right in the kisser and go bag a Dragon Ninja hooker. It's edgy that way, you see.