American McGee's Bad Day L.A. hands-on

Fact: one in 1,368 readers will be struck and killed by a falling meteor while reading this. Okay, so that's not entirely true, but similarly absurd situations and scenarios jam the subversive, satirical action-title Bad Day LA way past chock-full. Rock star game designer American McGee pokes fun at our national pastimes of racism and classism during our Bush-Era culture war of fear - but does so using everything from a guy in a hamburger suit to toxic waste-spawned zombies.

Our hands-on look at Bad Day LA's demo began with a bang - a jumbo jet filled with a cache of bioterrorist weapons crashes into the Santa Monica freeway during rush hour. If that wasn't bad enough, green goo leaked out from the wreckage zombified passersby, causing a wave of chaos and violence to cascade over the city.

Bad Day  stars the most unlikely of anti-heroes - a former movie producer named Anthony Williams who decided to chuck it all and live the carefree life of a homeless bum. Despite being a big-time Hollywood exec, our hero inexplicably speaks with the thick-tongued Ebonics of a proud fourth grade graduate. Easily offended readers, take note - Bad Day L.A. possesses all the subtlety and comedic nuance of getting tasered in the balls.

The cartoony vision of Los Angeles is what saved the Day - the "Sunday funnies" 2D characters inside of the cel-shaded metropolis give Bad Day L.A. a singular, amusing look that puts the silly story in the right perspective.


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