Pac-Man As Pot Head

1up.com has a look at the history of drugs in games, from the pellet-popping days of Pac-Man to the industrious sales efforts of the GTA games. From the article: "As games drew a wider audience, not to mention a wider variety of creative talents (some pretty weird stuff reportedly went on at the Atari offices in an evening), they necessarily drew on a wider spectrum of influences and inspirations...some of them chemical in nature. There have been games that were probably made on drugs -- Rez springs to mind, or the Virtual Light Machine -- and even reviewed on drugs, when A.C. Styles dosed the office coffee pot at Die Hard Game Fan."

Yoshi's a crackhead!

[BandwidthHog]

Ya know how many (most?) side scrolling games have those terminal gaps in the map, the bottomless pits you gotta jump over? Well, in Super Mario Brothers, the lovable Yoshi would invariably head for one of those cracks as soon as you lost control of him. Me and my girlfriend at the time used to spend many, many hours smoking cigarettes and all sorts of groovy things whilst playing this game, and "Yoshi's a crackhead!" became a constant refrain.

Oh, and, uhh, the mushrooms? Hello! Waiter, could we get some subtlety over here? Thanks.

Re:Yoshi's a crackhead!

[forkazoo]

Yoshi was nothing. Replay Mario 2 on the NES now that you are old enough to appreciate it. Use magic potions to unlock a door to a shadow universe that you can only see when you drink it. One eyed snakes. All sorts of wierd metaphor that I never noticed when I was a little kid. Far and away, Mario 2 is the most subversive of the Mario games. The only one that features more blatant drug use is Dr. Mario, and that wasn't subversive.

Reminds me...

[Short Circuit]

...of a T-Shirt I once saw:

If video games affected kids, we'd all be popping magic pills and listening to electronic music.

I take three prescribed medications, and listen to Amiga music. Does that count?

Re:Interesting but not surprising...

[MyLongNickName]

You know what. I am so tired of hearing there everyone is a drug abuser. I'd write out a long, detailed scathing response, but I have to go get my 12th Coke of the day now...