ONM Remembered – PSM Week, day 2

Monday, October 1, 2012 at 11:00 am Comments Off on ONM Remembered – PSM Week, day 2

“The game operates as a 3D scrolling beat-’em up with tricky puzzle games, such as Where’s My House and a PaRappa The Rapper-style Look, I Am The Greatest Dancer In The World.”


from PlayStation Magazine issue 62 (September 2000)

Drunk In The NYPD, a game idea submitted by a loveable scamp called Ronan Murphy.
I love it when game magazines embraced the idea of people sending in ideas for games. Do movie magazines ever accept letters from people detailing their grand ideas for films, or music magazines with people outlining out their great music ideas? “I’ve got a sick idea for a song: I’d play some sick guitar for a few shreds, and then my mate Joey would get a bangin’ drum solo for about five minutes, then we’d record some jets flying overhead and segue into a zebra walking along a scaled-up xylophone. It’s gotta be a zebra, it’s essential to the song’s message.”

I adore how Ronan has such a clear vision for his game idea. There is no grand ambition for a deep, multi-tiered game, one with a deluge of features or attempts at targeting multiple audience. It isn’t aiming to be a universal drunk simulator – a to-scale world where the drunk roam free, doing what the drunk does best. No. He doesn’t want to play a free-range drunk. he wants to play an angry drunk.

I’m also reminded of something my main man Rage Quitter 87 talked about on the site at one point – The Melting Pot! A feature in the old Computer & Video Games magazine, he highlighted some of the goofiest game ideas available. It wasn’t people going “I wanna play a Mario game but it’s LIKE THIS” or “it’ll be an FPS but this time the guns are purple”. These guys had unique ideas. Totally unmarketable, but I hold heaps of respect for their sheer originality. Okay, they’re not exactly innovative – I like to play video games for the fantasy can’t-do-this-in-reality aspect, whereas you look at a typical night in Belfast and most folks are already playing a lite edition of Drunk In The NYPD. But, damn it, this guy wants a game where you play a drunk, and I want to see it happen.

The scan is a bit wobbly, so I’ve transcribed the text below for anyone who wants to soak it in.

THE CONCEPT
You play Jimmy The Drunk, a former police officer who’s trading in his empty bottle for a broken one in his quest for justice. Jimmy waskicked out of the force for boozing on duty, and now, he’s really mad. The game operates as a 3D scrolling beat-’em up with tricky puzzle games, such as Where’s My House and a PaRappa The Rapper-style Look, I Am The Greatest Dancer In The World. You battle through 26 levels, drinking as much beer as you can and picking fights with police officers, passers-by and the occasional stationary object.

THE PITCH
An ad man’s dream – think of the product tie-ins. Jimmy will get a bonus life (Represented by a bottle of Smirnoff that drains as your energy diminishes) for every 20 bottles of Budweiser he successfully collects and drinks.
For the player, there will be the opportunity to collect one of 62 weapons, including broken bottles, knives, guns and even a telescope. What’s more you can also possess an alarming armoury of wrestling moves, and, if you pass enough urinals without watering the ceramics, you can perform your special move – peeing violent in the spin of wee death.

THE VERDICT
Jimmy is not only a drunk, but gets in lots of fights so expect plenty of action. The added bonus for over 18s is that if you play the game while drunk, Jimmy will appear to walk in a straight line rather than pinballing down the street, bouncing off obstacles. A winner for anyone who plays games like their hands belong to someone else.

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