Game Review: Summer Break
I’ve been guilty many times in my life of spending incredible amounts of time devoted to relatively retarded things simply because of boredom. Like trying to create a miniature golf course in my bedroom out of cardboard, making a Go-Kart out of a non-functioning lawnmower engine, playing all the way through Final Fantasy 8, etc. All things that I would have probably gotten more out of my time by staring at a wall rather than actually putting forth effort to do them. And it just so happens that I’ll be continuing that grand tradition today, as we take a look at the time I spent playing a little game called, mysteriously enough, Summerbreak.
I found Summerbreak while perusing some of those sites that list free online role playing games. I’m all about getting shit free lately since I barely have enough money to buy a couple of Hot Pockets to live off of. So I immediately clicked the links to a few of the games listed, and while most of the games I saw were in fact free, the site usually forgot to mention that most of these games are either unplayable or still just a few random thoughts in the creator’s brain. Virtually none of them had anything to offer except promising me that their crude version of a chat room with a couple of multi-colored polygons floating around would totally revolutionize online gaming and how people communicate forever. But in the meantime I guess I’m just supposed to accept this, and click on their thousands of “VOTE FOR ME NOW” buttons scattered across their site. No thanks. I think I’d be better off spending my precious life force punching myself in the stomach until I scream.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I do NOT think a chatroom with MSPaint characters on screen with little thought bubbles above their heads should be classified as a “game.” It’s not a game. It is retarded. And it is certainly not the future of online gaming, as already pointed out in the Sims Online review. I’m not looking for an animated chatroom when I want to play online games. I want things I can shoot with my rocket launcher. I don’t want to talk to little people acting goofy on screen, I want to run them over in my jet-powered monster truck.
Welcome... TO THE FUTURE
But there were a few games listed, and I figured I’d try those. The few sites that did actually offer a REAL game download as opposed to an online chatroom, fail to mention that once you download their 800 meg game and take the time to install it file by file, thanks to the creator deciding that installers are for wusses, you’ll find that the game is largely unplayable, and most of the time not even online yet. I downloaded one game (which shall remain nameless) that was roughly around 450 megs, and once I finally got it installed, I discover that I can’t start the game. Hmm… I must be doing something wrong. So I finally find the readme file buried deep within the 7,006 folders that the zip file shit out all over my desktop, where it explains to me that the game is still working out bugs, and isn’t even bootable. ISN’T EVEN BOOTABLE. Why do you put a 400 meg game online that ISN’T EVEN ABLE TO BE START UP. I guess for the sole purpose of making me scream at the fucking monitor for hours after finding out that there isn’t even an uninstall included. Wonderful. Now I’m stuck with 400 megs of virtual shit, and a million folders containing a game that can’t be played. I guess the “Still in beta” announcement on their site was actually supposed to mean “HAHA STUPID WHITE BOY.”
After that little adventure, I was about to give up. After all, there’s no better truth than the saying “You get what you pay for.” But there was one last link left on the list. The game’s name was Summerbreak, and was currently dead last on the list, with a total of 9 votes recommending it to the general public. I could only imagine what Summerbreak contained, as even the game that wasn’t even playable had around 30 votes. This could possibly mean that Summerbreak could simply not even be a game, and instead a a program that shuts your computer down forever for being such a moron for even trying to play it. But against all logic, I clicked on the link to see what Summerbreak could offer me while inundated with boredom.
The introduction of any game is fairly important to any developer wanting you to play their game. It’s their way of selling you their product. If the developer simply said, “Hey fag play my game it’s neat,” then no, I don’t think I’d invest much more time into his game other than the time spent punching him in the face. Most of the time though, your basic online fantasy game has intros such as, “Come into a new world filled with FANTASY and ADVENTURE! Watch as your character builds exciting and meaningful relationships with REAL people over the course of your AMAZING ADVENTURES!” Or some moronic banter such as that. And even though it’s relatively stupid and completely false, at least it TRIES to sell the idea. But with Summerbreak, I was treated to what is probably the best introduction to a game ever:
“SummerBreakGame is the challenge to become the best of the best. Cruisin down Minionville poppin’ caps in peoples asses to picking up your cell phone to make a bootycall. Getting jobs to make cash and getting ass to showing off the badass car you own. Run with your posse and the best of the gang and most of all watch your ass because you never know when you’ll get stuck from behind……. Literally”
How could I refuse that? My inner black gangster murderer has always wanted to live the life of hardcore street gang boss. And there’s even an obscure reference to butt sex at the end! If this game was half as good as its introduction, then we’ve already got a candidate for best game ever created. Plus, there’s a picture of two guys with pistols in an SUV in front of a picture of an upscale house, which then carries over to the next page where they are doing the exact same thing, just in front of the Pyramids. And if there was ever one place where I wanted to throw down some caps on some disrespectin niggas, it’s in Giza.
Ridin' in the hood, first sand dune on the right brings PAIN
After a bit of investigating, I was pleased to find that the game was completely based online, which is good since I’m still trying to clean all the random files that last game installed. All I had to do was sign up, make a screen name and password, and I was on my way to finally being the large intimidating black man that I have always wanted to be.
Upon signing into Summerbreak, I was asked to create my character. While I was hoping for the kind of advanced character creation tools from other role playing games, I quickly found that the entire character creation process is basically selecting if you want to be male or female. Oh well. I quickly choose male, reaffirming my hetero male image, which you can see below:
Only faggy gangsters wear clothes on these mean streets!
I’m then taken to my “hideout” which seems to just be a screen with a picture of my character in his underwear, and a bunch of other shit that I have no clue as to what it is. I decide to peruse some of the options on the toolbar to the left, which appears to be the different areas in the “city” appropriately named Jiggletown, that I can visit. These are what are available to me:
Whorehouse: The whorehouse is where you’ll go to gain experience by sleeping with various women. This was my first stop, and didn’t quite understand what I was doing, and simply thought I could sleep with women if I clicked on them. And when you haven’t had sex as long as I have, then you could see why I began clicking every option as fast as I could. But then I realized what I was doing, and found out all the women I just slept with were apparently very “mature.” Mature in the way that they probably can’t move unless they fall off their walker and roll across the floor. But the deed was already done, and this apparently gave me +1 in whatever stat sleeping with an old woman gives you. I would guess the ability to vomit onto a wall afterwards.
Stash Bank: This is basically a bank where I can put my nonexistent cash reserves. Why would one want to use the bank? Well, it seems that one of the big things to do in Summerbreak is to steal people’s money at random, no matter how much they may have. Even if you’re offline. So stashing it in the bank is a good way to make sure no one throws down on my defenseless, naked man when I am away. Now, I just have to figure out HOW to get money….
Headshop: I was a bit confused with the headshop at first, as I was totally expecting something MUCH different according to the name. What I got instead was this:
“OLD HIPPIE LADY: Damn you look healthy. I just wanna kiss you all over.”
Okay.
I didn’t find out until later that this is the place you go when you’ve been reduced to zero stamina to regain your health by taking a “hit” of the mysterious substance the old hippie lady offers. No, Summerbreak certainly isn’t going to be known for its subtle nature. But at the moment, I have no need to hit any weed, so I move on to the next portion of Jiggletown.
Clothes Store: This is, of course, where you buy clothes. I went here immediately to try and find some clothes for my poor naked character, who must feel rather bad about trying to be a badass gangster pimp while walking around in his boxers. I was shocked however to find that Jiggletown is probably the most expensive city on Earth, as a basic pair of cargo jeans somehow costs 30,000 dollars. I currently had 500 dollars. Those cargo pants better suck my dick whenever I get around to putting a down-payment on a pair.
Churches: I still have no clue what these are for, but basically there are five Churches in total:
- Followers of Zestu
- Riders of the Frisbee
- Flying Frogs Sworn to Zaka
- The Continuum Transformers
- Cult of the Shiners
I quickly enter the Continuum of Transformers and pray, because I figure if I’m gonna pray to any God, then it’s gonna be motherfucking Optimus Prime. Even if the Riders of the Frisbee have a cooler name. But I have no idea what praying does. Maybe it cleanses me for the nastiness of sleeping with an old woman, because there’s no shower strong enough to wash away that filth.
Red Light District: This, it appears, is where you get jobs. I was more than ready to pick up a job as a bouncer or a surly bartender that served just as many punches as he does beers, but I was shocked to see that the only job I had the experience to qualify for was a Go Go Dancer. Seriously. While not exactly the job I would normally jump at, you’d be surprised the lengths you’ll go to when you need money to buy pants. So I accept my job as a Go Go Dancer and dance for a few people, earning me a nice 1000 dollars in the process. Unfortunately, that 1000 dollars cannot hide the horrible shame. Nothing will.
Government District: The Government district is where you go to read about the various goings on in Jiggletown by reading the Newspaper. Excellent. Let’s read what today’s headlines are:
Aug-28: FRONT PAGE!!!! Eli, John, and Rob killed in a drive by! In other news, pigs do fly.
Wow that sucks for Eli, John, and Rob I guess. But it’s kinda cool that pigs can fly now. And as far as I can tell, that’s all there is in the paper.
After seeing all that Jiggletown had to offer, I decided to head over to “Minionville.” Minionville is what many of us would refer to as the ghetto, except Minionville takes that concept to a whole new level since the only thing to do in Minionville is to constantly get shot every other minute by other players. These are of course drive bys, and since I am new to Minionville, and have no car, or pants, I seemed to be a prime target for the more seasoned Summerbreak players, and within a few moments I was shot by someone named Big Sarge. The odd thing though was that even though it said I was killed, I still seemed to be alive and functioning. Death seems to be nothing more than a slight inconvenience in Minionville. And since I’m not one to punk out to some bitch who shot me in the head, I tried to do a drive by on him, which failed since the game informs me that my current ride is a pair of shoes and I am unable to do drive bys on other people without a car. I then tried to do a drive by on myself, which, unfortunately, failed also.
Welcome to Minionville, friend
I continued to trek around Minionville on foot though. It seems that every street you click on, you’ll find something. The first street I entered, I found a cat, then a dirty sock, a cold beer, and eventually a cheeseburger. It seems the idea is that if you’ve got enough luck built up, you’ll stumble across items you can actually use, like car parts, which you can use to build your own car. During my two weeks playing, I came up on a total of one car part, which was unfortunately not enough to make an entire car out of. This game has obviously not seen my idea for the “One Car Part Car” which should be implemented immediately:
It is purely coincidence that this car is made of the one part I found
Even though I was unable to make a fully functioning car, I at least found approximately 7,832,845 cats, so I guess that kind of evens things out.
After seeing all that Minionville had to offer, which took a total of five minutes, I was tired and decided to log out for the day, when I was appropriately shot and killed again.
During the next week I would occasionally sign in and go through the various routines of going to the whorehouse and sleeping with more old ladies (it gets easier after a while, trust me), dance for a few people at the bar, wandering around Minionville and getting shot, and trying my best to save up enough money to finally buy some pants. This carried on for what seemed like an eternity, but then something magical happened; I turned seven days old! Yes, much like present day Texas, once you reach seven days of age, you are officially “legal” in the game. The most important part of being legal is that you can now bootycall other players. And what exactly is being bootycalled? I have no fucking clue. Well, I didn’t for the longest time, and since Summerbreak is about the most uninformative game of all time, I was forced to find out on my own. The hard way.
It seems that bootycalling people is basically the most important part of the game. Much different from what I had previously thought to be the most important part of the game: logging out. But no, bootycalling just happens to be the game’s word for “battle.” Except instead of using guns or fists or crazy space weapons or dinosaurs, you’ll be having sex with your opponent, and whoever can go the longest before passing out wins the match, gaining experience points and all the money you were previously carrying. Don’t believe me? Me neither, but it’s true. I found out rather quickly as almost immediately as I turned seven days old, I was attacked and had all the previous money I had been saving for my illusive cargo pants taken. This game, much like Horseland before it, is trying to break me.
I then decided that perhaps I would try my hand at bootycalling someone. Perhaps then I could gain a level finally. So I grabbed my cell phone and searched through some of the players, and picked one out of the list as my random victim. I instigated the bootycall, and this is what transpired:
NotJeremy thrusts MadNate for 4.49375 stamina (29.50625 left)
MadNate thrusts NotJeremy for 6 stamina (14 left)
MadNate thrusts NotJeremy for 5 stamina (9 left)
NotJeremy thrusts MadNate for 3.49375 stamina (26.0125 left)
NotJeremy missed MadNate’s hole
NotJeremy thrusts MadNate for 5.49375 stamina (20.51875 left)
NotJeremy thrusts MadNate for 2.49375 stamina (18.025 left)
MadNate thrusts NotJeremy for 6 stamina (3 left)
MadNate thrusts NotJeremy for 4 stamina (-1 left)
NotJeremy passed out.
I’m going to be sick
If you’re wondering, that was about the same as a pitiful homeless village person going up against a giant fire breathing dragon made out of pure steel. Except that this turned out far worse. Not only did I get beaten extremely badly, but I also “missed his hole” once. This is more than enough to tell me to quit playing this game now and never log in again.
And that’s basically what I did. I had played Summerbreak for a grand total of two weeks and my character is no better off now than he was when I started. All I have to my name in two weeks worth of playing is a level one character with a car engine, a shitload of cats, and one extremely stretched ass from the 13 or so bootycalls that I lost. I was also shot and killed at least 100 times. Though I must mention this is just my experience. Several people from the forum decided to play too, and somehow did much better than I did. But I found out that most of the stuff they gained over me were things that were given to them by other players. Pussies. This just goes to show that, just like real life, it’s all about who you know. Unfortunately, my hermit-like character turned out to be Jiggletown’s equivalent of the retarded kid whose biggest achievement was not shitting on himself when he laughed too hard.
To its credit, Summerbreak is one of those games that shouldn’t be taken too seriously, as the creators obviously made the game that way. It’s stupidly fun if you get into it and start gaining levels. Plus, there’s no better way than to play than with a few of your friends, as playing by yourself is the equivalent of looking at yourself in the mirror for hours on end. There’s not THAT much to do, and it’s something to pass a few minutes a day since there’s only so much you can do in one session. I do however recommend it. Plus it’s free, so you can’t beat that.
And so ended my time with Summerbreak. I may not have gained much with my time there, but I did learn a good deal of humility in the process. After all, sleeping with old women, constantly being killed and raped, and the occasional messages from other players telling me to suck their cock and die doesn’t exactly give one the confidence they are used to receiving from other games. But even with all of that, I didn’t come out totally defeated….
Awwwwww yeah
(As of the time this review was posted, Summer Break is not available online anymore. It seems the guy who ran it got arrested and was sent to jail for an extended period of time. I am not even joking.)
