American McGee, reclusive creator behind the twisted remake of "Alice in Wonderland," released a game for the PC a few years ago. Called "Bad Day L.A.," the game put you in the shoes of a homeless black man, whose only goal is to get out of Los Angeles. Simply due to the fact that he is a homeless black man, the police will come after him unless he proves his good will by helping others. During the course of his quest, everything that could go wrong, does go wrong. A terrorist attack turns the population of the city into zombies, tidal waves crash through the streets, a meteor shower rains flaming death, and Mexico attempts to reclaim Los Angeles for it's own.

    According to the reviews (there were only a handful of reviews actually done, most of which have been removed by now), the gameplay felt rushed, missions were repetitive, and it was impossible to completely "die." All this is pretty believable. Maybe I have too much faith, but I feel that despite the technical downsides, the gameplay could prove to be a fun and comical relief from the darker games of today, such as Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (a great FPS that slipped through the cracks).

     American McGee took a decidedly satirical point of view on American society, and that's my kind of humor. In today's world, there is so much material to poke fun at, I'm glad someone finally had the cahones to do so. Using a cast of stereotypical characters (Anthony, the homeless African American, the Sick Kid, a zombie kid that can vomit, Juan, an amnesiac Mexican yard worker, Beverly, the Paris Hilton wannabe, and The Sargeant, a parody of both the President and california's Governator), McGee makes fun of everything from the paranoia of the average citizen to the effects of censorship on the gaming industry. 

      Call me crazy, but it sounds like fun. There are certain games that you play, even if they are complete crap. Take Mel Gibson's Safari 3, for example. It sucks, big time. But it's a game about Mel Gibson's safari. Come on, you can't not play it. It's the same with games like Echo Night: Beyond and Space Channel 5. They didn't get a lot of recognition, nor did they achieve glorious reviews, but they still have their own little charm. That's what a lot of these next-gen games lack: uniqueness and charm. HALO 3 will offer us nothing new. Resistance: Fall of Man offered us nothing new. 

    The Xbox version of Bad Day L.A. still is TBA. Maybe I'm the only one, but I'm hoping McGee is hunkered down with his Chinese development team to take his idea and improve upon it.