Spike Lee's The Twilight Zone

Spike Lee's Twilight Zone is a game which I initially wasn't too keen on playing. Owing to the fact that I prefer plot over gameplay in RPGs-- this particular project, which features a collection of minigames with an insane storyline revolving around a psychotic version of filmmaker Spike Lee, didn't inspire too much hope in me. I am one of those crazy people who play RPGs mostly for the plot, and if the storyline of a game is nonexistant or lacking, I find myself having fewer reasons to continue playing. And so, I began playing this game thinking that I would lose every minigame due to my exceptionally horrid gaming skills, become frustrated, and ragequit. I ended up being wrong.

I look back on my time with the game and I can safely say that, despite many rage-inducing moments, I quite enjoyed it.

The game starts off with our four heroes playing in the rain. They are: Psyburn the asian boy who yells a lot, Spitz the anthropomorphic wolf fellow, Shotgun Girl who is a girl with a shotgun, and Sonic the Hedgehog (Yes. The former Sega Mascot). I was at first a bit apprehensive about the kind of humour the creator was going for. During the first cutscene, when our four main characters are introduced, I thought the game's comedy would delve too deeply into the Family Guy school of complete randomness = funny. I am not a big fan of that type of comedy, and feared the game's writing would go in this direction, but all of that was gone the moment Spike Lee made his appearance.

Strangeluv's Spike Lee is a wonderful creation. He is crude, maniacal and hilarious. I was delighted whenever he was on screen. Sure it went into a bit of random wackiness with the inclusion of cult-icon Freakazoid as an evil butler, but by that point the writing had won me over and I didn't care. All I wanted was to see more of Evil Spike Lee having his way with the four heroes. Speaking of said heroes, their characterization left a lot to be desired. This can be forgiven, however, since I came away from the game thinking that Spike Lee was the real star. Apart from Psyburn, who came off more annoying than anything else, the four main characters barely had any personality. I suppose they were just devices to base the game's minigame format around.

Now, the meat and potatoes of SLTZ are the minigames. To put it simply, I despised them. I hated how unresponsive my keyboard seemed to be and how enraged I was becoming after losing and having to read the slow-moving dialogue time and time again at the start of the minigames. Most of the minigames were in no way fun and were very difficult. One particular offender was a hellish segment where you must quickly collect food (which moves around) for a hungry cave man thing who will take away your life if you don't feed him quickly enough. You must do this while searching for the exit of a map and dodging rampaging dinosaurs who also damage your life if they touch you. It was very, very horrible.

My opinion on the minigames may seem very negative, but I look back on them and I am actually glad that I played through them. Conquering those minigames brought back a strange, almost childlike glee, similar to how I used to feel when I actually enjoyed playing videogames using reflexes and hand-eye coordination. The last "minigame", a ridiculously annoying battle which involved plenty of audible screams of "Oh come on, that's bullshit!" and "Fuck this fucking game!" before I was finally able to beat it, brought an incredible feeling of bliss afterwards. It had actually succeeded in charming me with its frustrating design, and I felt very relieved during the rest of the day after I beat that last minigame, as if a burden had been lifted from my shoulders. Modern games haven't done that for me in quite a while.

I'm not sure if it’s just me being stupid and bored, or if the creator was playing around with some weird meta concepts while developing them, but I find that there was a strange artistic quality to the minigames. They were all so rage-inducing for me, and yet I couldn't stop playing. Of course, the storyline with Spike Lee was a contributing factor in me not giving up, but there was something else. What I'm talking about is how certain genres of "entertainment" involve no real entertainment at all. Take for example a film like Irreversible (the movie where Monica Bellucci gets ravaged for ten minutes), or a game like Shadow of the Colossus. These two examples of interactive entertainment aren't really so entertaining, as they both make the player feel disturbed at times. Even if Strangeluv wasn't going for it, I think this game is similar to those two examples, and I think it deserves to be celebrated for that.

Another reason why these minigames don't bother me so much right now, after I am done with them and can look back, is that it was very apparent that an incredible amount of work and effort had been put into them. I couldn't imagine how much planning it took to create six or seven different minigames (I can't remember how many there were exactly) on RPGMaker 2003 of all things, and then implement them without any major bugs. I will say that while they weren't the best designed minigames, they did seem to work like they were supposed to.

All in all, Spike Lee's Twilight Zone is a game that will no doubt offend many players with its difficult minigames. The writing, which at times can be quite dark and even offensive, is for me the game's most interesting feature. I would have preferred the main heroes to have a bit more going on in terms of characterization, and I could have done without the very, very graphic beach scene, but overall, I would very much recommend it to anyone who would be interested in trying something a little different from the typical RPG.