At the New Yorker holiday party last week, a slightly tipsy editor let me in on the secret that governs whether freelance pitches are accepted or not: it's one big behavioral reinforcement experiment. "We reward you just enough to keep you pressing the lever," he said.
I guess someone sensed that, nine and a half months since I last got something in the magazine, my lever paw was getting tired, because this week I finally got another thumbs up. In the new issue: Cyber City (headline most definitely not my idea), in which professional tour guides road test the new video game, True Crime: New York City. New Yorkers will appreciate the screengrab above after reading the article. That's Marcus with George M. Cohan.
You might remember that I did a little research for this game in early 2004. When I wrote the New Yorker piece I made sure to shoehorn in a parenthetical disclosure, but it was taken out by the editors. I don't know exactly why, but I guess it was a combination of things. First, It was one of those awkward sentences that draws more attention to the disclaimer than is warranted. Second, not much attention was warranted because I pretty clearly have no stake in the game's success. And finally, I learned that practically none of the research I did actually ended up in the game. All that stuff they wanted to do with unique non-player characters turned out to be too time consuming (and I guess, though Activision didn't say so, expensive).
In case you're wondering, I haven't yet played much of the game other than for the purpose of exploring virtual Manhattan. That part is definitely fun, but the rest of it is, I think, geared to gamers who are more hardcore than myself. There's a lot going on and I just can't see myself devoting the kind of time and energy that it apparently requires to really get into it. On the other hand, I owe Rockstar an apology for this post. The Warriors game is pretty great, at least the few levels I've gotten through. Yes, it's largely a brawling game, but it's not only that (it's also a mugging, stealing, and smashing stuff up game) and each level is a pretty decent sized open arena that nicely evokes 1979 New York. The acting (they got most of the original performers, which I guess isn't a surprise) and script are very true to the spirit of the movie too.
