Everybody Loves a Winner

It’s true: no one truly enjoys a loser (even your mom when she acts like you’ll do better next time). I’m serious. Everyone Loves a Winner.

Mind-blowin' graphics of '96

This week, I witnessed it first hand. With due appreciation for Blues News reporting that Remedy Entertainment has free-released their 1996 hit, Death Rally, I was praised by my peers for my driving prowess and ultimately shunned for my losing streak. This top-down racer pits you against three other drivers equipped with machine guns, mines, spiked bumpers and boosts. All this and I still rose to the top. After about 7 races, I had enough cash to purchase not the next best car, but two cars up from my default Vagabond.

A couple of guys took notice of what I was doing and suddenly I had them asking me to play again so they could watch as I battled for first place against the likes of NPCs Greg Peck and Cher Stone. As any game designer would tell you, keeping your audience involved is key, so I would ask the guys what upgrades I should purchase with my winnings. Suddenly, my “team” really felt like we were all accomplishing something great.  And weren’t we? We were having incredibly humorous discussions about races in a game that is 13-years old! 

Then I bought the Wraith.

Fully Upgraded, Bro

The Wraith looks like a Porsche 911 for all intents and purposes and is pretty fast. Without at least 3 tire upgrades, I couldn’t seem to handle the turns and my winning streak was shattered. The races were still interesting, but I knew I was underperforming. I took some time to win some easier races and upgrade my Wraith all the way. The “team” came back to see how I was faring and quickly got back into the action as I won a few races.

With their encouragement, I stepped it up to the hard races in order to win the big prizes of $12K for 1st place. Sadly, I was left behind, duking it out for 3rd place against some other poser NPC who, like me, should’ve known better than to enter this level of racing.

The end result is the guys lost interest in watching me get scorched from the starting line and struggling to return to my former glory. They moved on and left me cold and shivering in the shadows of the top four racers (including Duke Nukem, that bastard).