by Strange Behaviour
Strange Behaviour LOVES video games. If you’ve played as many video games over the years as SB, you begin to realise that there are only so many games in existence, and no matter how nice they look, or how futuristic they sound there is a finite amount that you can do with them. The newest Call of Duty may be shinier and more killtastic than the last, but it is still, essentially Doom. Dedicated nerds around the world have spent years developing ways to play games in ways that the developers did not intend. None with the passion and fire of SB. Whether it was timed races to see who could use Sonic’s debug mode to crash the Megadrive (Genesis, yanks) first, to using Deadliest Warrior to play one on one football (Soccer, yanks and old British people) with your previous round’s severed head SB and chums have always looked upon the games themselves as only a vehicle to a new breed of fun. Today we’re going to look at something that parents the world over find difficult – an affordable, fun and safe children’s birthday party. Now I know my Genesis-playing, soccer-saying cousins have a thing called chucky cheese, which SB can only picture as being some kind of macaroni hurling contest, and in England 0we have LazerQuest or however it’s spelled, but the kids of today think these things are yawn-o-rama. They told me. So, in terms of venue I’ve picked a gore-splattered ultra-violent zombie apocalypse. Now the venue is set, without further ado, SB proudly presents the top 6 ways to recreate a child’s birthday party in Left 4 Dead 2.
1 – Musical chairs – A party favourite from times past, and just as much fun now. Obviously your party needs to be in a good location, not just out in the streets, so find somewhere indoors with a jukebox. I’d recommend the cafe in the early part of the Waterfront section of The Parish. Put some snappy tunes on the jukebox, and dance around the room. When the track changes, the last person to jump up onto a chair or table is out. And by ‘out’ we mean literally cast out of the cafe to wait outside trying to fight off infected to make it to the next party game.
2 – Boomers – Every children’s party has one hugely overweight kid whose parents gave him too much candy in the car on the way over. Not only has this poor little bugger been spoiled rotten but he’s making a bee-line for the party snacks, and if the song from Portal crops up on the jukebox, he’ll go nuts, it mentions cake! Choice is yours really, you can let him wander around being sick on people to spice up the party games or just put him down as soon as he arrives, it’s the kindest way.
3 – Pass the parcel – Simple; pass around an adrenalin syringe until the tune of jukebox changes, when it does the person holding the adrenalin simply has to shoot it in their veins and take to the streets. When their drug-fueled rampage runs out, they can return and restart the game.
4 – Pin the tail on the..err Nick. No one likes Nick. His business suit and snarky comments make you want to club him about the head with a blunt object. So we present another children’s favourite, but with obvious limitations. While the makers of Left 4 Dead for some reason left out a pin with a donkey’s tail attached as a pick up you do have a selection of melee weapons. Stand Nick in one corner of the room and then decide which player is ‘it’. That player must then close their eyes, spin around a couple of times and try to make their way over to Nick and pin the tail on his face, with a firm smack from a melee weapon. Body shots do not count, so be listen for his whining and then aim higher.
5 – Clowns – It wouldn’t be a birthday party without clowns! These chaps are plentiful, but location dependent. If you want to shell out that bit more and visit the Dark Carnival level, your little cherubs can be entertained by clowns. Like children’s entertainers the world over these chapos are happy to be laughed at, bumped into and even have their noses honked, all with good humour. They even seem to take it pretty well should you set them on fire or shoot them in the throat. Comparatively well, anyway.
6 – Smoker – You can’t not invite some of the kids just because you hate their parents, worse luck. There’s always that one mum (Sometimes she’s the mum of the fat kid), the one who doesn’t seem to have an interest in her kid beyond the fact that the little darling goes to a posh school and the amount of time it took her to get her shape back. While her tuppence is getting chocolate all over your carefully chosen venue and guests, mum is at a distance smoking away and making spiteful small talk with anyone who’ll listen. In the long run, it’s for the good of the kid if you do shoot her, so enjoy!
Strange Behaviour is the alter-ego of Alexander Page, whose understanding of pop culture and finger on the pulse of new releases is non existent. He resides in Cambridge, England and doesn’t really understand what all the fuss is about.