Somewhere, Shigeru Miyamoto sits in squalor, silently cursing the gods of micro-transactions for what they have done. As he accepts the hopelessness of it all, a single tear makes it way down his cheek before landing in the N64 cartridge he was clasping affectionately. As he blows into it, he acknowledges the simple beauty of it all and allows himself a wry smile. The gun rises to his temple.
This game took me to a dark place. A place where I imagine serial killers thought up all of their ideas, a place where the E.T game is held in as high esteem as the Zelda series and a place where the godfather of video games kills himself after wandering into the wrong section of the App Store.
Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is not a bad game. Nor is it a good game. That’s because it is not even a game. It is just a bad thing, created by cunts, for cunts. Oh, sorry, I meant kunts. They couldn’t even be arsed to come up with something to misspell on purpose by themselves.
ERR MER GERD KERM KERDERSHERAN
The story, as far as I could make out from the time I spent feeling my soul shit itself out of my fingers every time I tapped the screen, revolves around a lowly shopkeeper who like, oh my god, totally meets Kim Kardashian. This is where things start getting a bit unrealistic because Kim K doesn’t turn her nose up at you and jiggle her bumhemoth disapprovingly in your general direction but instead chooses to make pals. The game then effectively bullies you into trading in your grip on reality as you spiral into Kim’s world of making mates with podiatrists, just so you can look like you’re more popular in a pretend world, wearing a pretend dress which people actually spend real money to buy.
No game is free these days. Even if someone comes up to you on the street with what looks like a pristine copy of This is Football 2002, you should think twice. As is the case with Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, what might look like a bit of harmless fun at first can leave you empty emotionally and in the wallet. Micro-transactions are common in any game on a handheld device these days and are rife throughout this one; don’t turn your back for a second or you might find you’ve spent £100 on a red dress that makes your virtual boobs look outstanding.
The gameplay doesn’t exist. You press the screen randomly and cash comes out of random places, ironically how Kim K became famous in the first place. Sometimes when you press the screen with your shriveled and weary digits, it doesn’t even work which invariably winds up with you stabbing your phone with a longsword and crying out ” YOU DON’T OWN ME, KIM” to the night sky. Without a top on. That’s just how batshit this thing makes you.
HAHA EUPHEMISMS NICE ONE PAL
I would like to say that I managed to make it the whole way through so I could give a properly leveraged review of it but Christ, I really couldn’t. The more I played, the more I realised that the foreboding messages of 1984 and Black Mirror were coming true before my very eyes. It’s so fundamentally devoid of reality that you’re almost believing that it’s a parody or an elaborate joke conceived by opiate addicts who have been on a week long The Simple Life bender. It’s just so…ludicrous.
So, why do I even bother to give it a 1 out of 10 when I so clearly would rather wipe it from the annals (or anals, Kim?) of human history? Because whether you like it or not, someone actually had the sheer gravitas to come up with the idea and take it to a developer, all the while fully aware that they might be laughed out of the room for it.
That takes balls.
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