Humpday Gaming: What I Learned Playing Kingpin Life of Crime
While I can’t really say I’ve grown up on the streets, I can at least say I’ve watched enough TV and played enough games that I’m fairly certain I know what life on the street is like, and no other game ever taught me more about the gangster lifestyle I long to live more that Kingpin Life of Crime for the PC. The seminal urban lifestyle simulator made as real as the Quake 2 engine could make it.
Kingpin was an awesome game that a lot of people overlooked because of its FPS trappings, but if you’re like me and took the plunge into Kingpins virtual life simulator, you took tons of valuable lessons with you for the rest of your life.
Just how real was it?
Well let’s take a look at a few things that Kingpin and real life hood life as I know it have in common:
People Say Fuck. A Fucking Lot.
In all my time playing games, I have yet to play a game that says the word fuck more than Kingpin does. I’m not even exaggerating when I say that every single character in Kingpin says fuck after almost every word. A typical Kingpin sentence sounds like the following example:
“I just fucking got shot in my fucking fucked up eye hole you fucking dickfuck. Now go fuck yourself and die. Fuck”
I learned from Kingpin that the word fuck is a perfect spacer between words, and I fucking still fucking apply that fucking shit today.
Every Girl You See Will Shoot You In The Face
I see girls every day, and I know for a fact that they are simply there to pull out an insanely large gun and shoot me in the face if I so much as ask them to join my gang. That or a pipe. A big fucking pipe.
I haven’t dated since.
She may have all the curves 500 polygons can provide, but she has the downside of wanting to kill you. A lot.
Cypress Hill Music Accompanies Your Every Move
When I played Kingpin, I quickly realized that Cypress Hill is the true background music to the urban street lifestyle. Their angry wannabe rap stylings perfectly set the mood for everything you do in Kingpin, which basically just involves walking forward and shooting insane women. I realize that real life involves more than this (I know, gay), but that still doesn’t stop me from whipping out my Walkman with my favorite Cypress Hill cassette firmly pressed inside every time I walk outside the house..
You never know when shit will go down, so why not be ready? With Cypress Hill, you are totally ready to take a bullet to the face any time and have the perfect soundtrack for it.
Pretty Much Everyone Will Shoot You In The Face
It’s hard living your life in Kingpin. Everyone borders on hostile/murderous/on fire at a moment’s notice. Usually changing between one or the other without any clear provocation on your part. One second you could be casually talking to a bum, telling him how much you said the word fuck today, and the next he’ll be trying to push his hobo pipe through your neck.
How much more real can this shit be?
Here we see Big Hank taking a pipe to the head. Don't feel bad for him.
Shooting Your Friends Is the Most Fun You’ll Ever Have With Them
Kingpin’s multiplayer was pretty much just basic DM, but I was more hooked on its plodding pace than any other FPS at the time. The weapons were totally unbalanced, and most everyone was cheating like a bitch, but the fun that was had on those maps have yet to be replicated by many more games. Once you realize just how much fun it is shooting your friends in Kingpin or real life (what’s the difference, really?), you’ll wonder how you ever had fun before.
Your typical scene in Kingpin. No other game has more deaths by pipes.
There you have it. Do yourself a favor and play Kingpin sometime if you ever find yourself in an alternate universe and find yourself in a position where you’re able to play it. Especially if you’re ever interested in knowing what life on the streets is really like, and what you can do to make your life more like the life of crime you so desperately need it to be.
