As those who know me can attest, when I'm not cleansing my nasal passages or inhaling boulder-sized rocks of crack, I can generally be found clutching a greasy mouse playing through the first level of Doom...over and over...obsessively. That was until I discovered "Hanage 2." The game is sold through Japan's sprawling network of 100 yen shops, meaning it cost roughly 80 cents US. Don't be fooled by the price though. This game is a brilliant indictment of modern, consumerist society.
Premise Your guy swims relentlessly forward through the air, attacked by a variety of monsters that fly at him in sine-wave formations. Where do they come from? Perhaps from the depths of his cold, empty soul.
Gameplay This game uses only the space bar. When you press it, your guy swims toward the right side of the screen. Stop pressing it, and he drifts back toward the left. The mind-numbing simplicity, reducing the player to a cog carrying out simple, repetitive motions, is a perfect metaphor for our post-post culture in which humans are mere extensions of the machine/phallus that rules the universe.
Power ups The player can collect a number of power-ups, but these just uselessly change the character graphic's clothing with no discernable effect on the gameplay, or even more cruely, render him naked except for his briefs. Again, this aspect is highly informed by our modern culture, in which we, magpie-like, snatch up every glittering trinket dangled before us, accumulating mountains of designer clothing, automobiles and consumer electronics that are as useless and destined for the landfill as our own broken bodies.
Graphics Crudely rendered and garishly colored, they are obviously a reference to the grotesque carnival of human sexuality.
Sound The heroic music and humorous sound effects, contrast starkly with the game's darker themes, creating a keen psychological tension.
Concluding remarks Casting aside clumsy narrative and exposition, this game drives home the horror of modern existence as few others do. Even the title, "Hanage," meaning nosehair, is a reference to all we consider unsightly, undesirable and filthy within ourselves. It will hold up a cold flawless mirror, and you will shrink in terror from what you see.
