Video video games and weed have loved a stunning relationship for many years now, entangling themselves all through historical past in each unintended and purposeful methods. For the previous couple of a long time, the 2 have been seen as actions for lowlifes, issues to be averted. Now that every is established, acceptable, and the premise of billion-dollar industries, the 2 hobbies are so effortlessly related that, at this level, it’s not stunning to listen to that avid gamers prefer to get excessive, or that builders prefer to put little nods to weed of their video games.
Weed and video games have grown collectively over time, with each being avenues for bettering our well being or having fun with the evening after an extended day, able to loosen up and struggle off fictional enemies.
Typically weed is utilized in video video games as a method to advance the story, like when Ellie and Dina received to only let go after a sesh and maintain one another, in a kiss that appears like their first once more, solidifying the connection between two homosexual but additionally very shy women in Naughty Canine’s The Final of Us Half II. However typically, video games demonize the satan’s lettuce, or double down on the problematic criminalization of it, or indicate that it could actually actually kill you.
These cringy weed moments in video games and gaming historical past are a reminder that, regardless of their connections, video video games and weed are nonetheless figuring one another out.
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1. ‘Winners Don’t Do Medication’
“Winners Don’t Do Medication” was a message that would seem firstly of arcade video games, usually showing within the title credit and/or in the course of the arcade unit’s “Appeal to Mode,” which is the loop and animation and sound that performs when the cupboard is left undisturbed.
The initiative got here from probably the most cop-ish of all presidents, Richard Nixon, and every little thing possible, from the Ninja Turtles to video video games, needed to placed on a helmet and enlist within the conflict towards medication. Although it’s unclear on the precise variety of youngsters’s lives that have been saved by displaying this message earlier than arcade cupboards resembling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Wrestlefest, one would assume the FBI operation was profitable and that they knew what they have been doing. No phrase on how effectively that labored out, but when you concentrate on the blokes who used to frequent your native arcade, I’m fairly certain they dabbled in a dab or two.
This system, which was a joint operation between the FBI and the American Amusement Machine Affiliation, ran from 1989 to 2000, with 17 of the 20 arcade online game producers agreeing to incorporate the message of their video games. Earlier than the tip of the ’80s, it had been put in on over 10,000 totally different machines, simply considered one of many anti-drug fixtures on the partitions of youngsters’ lives again then.
Although it’s positively some dorky shit, together with an FBI seal throughout the “Winners Don’t Do Medication” display screen did make it simpler to establish counterfeit arcade cupboards, so not less than some good got here out of this lame-ass initiative. The egg industrial was good too. I prefer it when marijuana has the very actual facet impact of turning my mind into an egg frying in a pan.
2. Far Cry 3’s ‘Make it Bun Dem’
Far Cry 3 places gamers in an intense survival situation, the place you’re tasked with staying alive towards mercenaries and pirates on a bunch of islands in a tropical archipelago.
In between dodging stray bullets, keeping off violent, native wildlife, and all the opposite threats that current themselves in Ubisoft’s open-world shooter, you possibly can participate in a quest the place you could burn a number of marijuana fields with a flamethrower, all whereas “Make It Bun Dem,” a Reggaestep/dubstep music by Skrillex and Damian Marley, performs. For those who have been straight in 2012 then you definitely most likely thought this was the good factor, however all of the queer of us knew this was lame as hell, proper off the bong (heh) rip. Plus, the music alternative type of encapsulates the whole culturally appropriative expertise that’s the Far Cry collection. I ponder in the event that they received higher about that after Far Cry 3…
Ubisoft made up the cringey weed take a bit in Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, which mocked quite a lot of ‘80s tradition, together with the hysteria over medication.
3. Grand Theft Auto V’s Unhealthy Journey
Although the GTA collection has lengthy made conservatives fraught with rage and fear, it hilariously handles weed like somebody who’s by no means inhaled of their life.
There are nearly too many cringe moments with medication to checklist in terms of Grand Theft Auto, an grownup online game collection for adults. Probably the most cringe instance from the collection needs to be in Grand Theft Auto V, when Trevor Phillips, the sport’s crazed gun runner and drug supplier character, smokes a joint from a stranger.
So in one of many best-selling video video games of all time, when the cool prison participant character smokes a joint, he instantly begins seeing murderous clowns with assault rifles throughout him, which places the participant into an instantaneous, precise struggle for his or her life. You might want to dodge bullets and kill the clowns to remain alive, all whereas, stick with me right here as a result of it was 2013, Trevor screams and yells issues like, “I fucking hate clowns.” It’s some goofy shit.
You can too actually smoke an excessive amount of weed and die in GTA On-line, which is an attention-grabbing alternative contemplating it’s principally unimaginable. You’d should smoke “almost 1,500 kilos of marijuana inside fifteen minutes” to die, which implies my editor and I’ve come shut and perhaps we should always relax a little bit bit.
The remainder of you might be advantageous. Whoever is in control of drug references at Rockstar Video games, nonetheless, is a narc or not less than simply wants extra days off.
4. Smoking throughout battle and doing drug drops in Saints Row
Saints Row gives gamers with elevated fight powers when marijuana is consumed. (You understand, as a result of that’s what occurs after I smoke.) It does, nonetheless, include a stamina hit, after the coughing. Hey fellow children, I too get *checks notes* a success to stamina after experiencing coughing matches after I sm–oh, okay, effectively the stamina hit after a dab is true.
I’m able to focus higher on video video games after I’m excessive, although, and Saints Row supplying you with a pleasant enhance in harm resistance when consuming weed appears like a handshake between the 2 of us. However smoking weed additionally provides me and the Saints characters mania—I imply a distorted and cloudy perspective. So, okay, there’s a little bit little bit of fact to the wacky weed antics of the Saints Row franchise, however that doesn’t excuse its lame drug-dealing facet quests.
What are these? And the way did VIDEO GAMES, of all issues, handle to make DEALING DRUGS not cool, when even the text-based DOS sport Drug Wars made that type of cool???
In 2022’s Saints Row, the place you play a succesful member of an outlaw gang, there are quests known as Drug Pallet Pickups.
These are an amalgamation of fetch quests and the notorious “Press F to Pay Your Respects.” There’s no significant gameplay interplay, apart from discovering the areas within the atmosphere by yourself, or with the assistance of the in-game map. You press a button to work together with the pallet and it merely disappears, abandoning cash. It’s the “Bingo!” for me, tbh.
We don’t even know what varieties of medicine are packed away on these palettes, however fetching them is so boring, I don’t even need no matter’s in there.
5. Weed Store 2, Weedcraft Inc, and all the opposite lame-ass ‘Hempire’ video games
I’m sorry. Certain, any Farmville clone is routinely not less than sus, on discover, and more likely to be known as lame, however all “Weed Tycoon” video games are significantly pathetic, trying like an amalgamation of AMC’s Breaking Unhealthy and each single Fb farming and mafia sport your mother performs all day on her iPad.
Within the cringe and really sq. Weedcraft Inc, gamers should handle a weed empire and ugh, how do builders maintain making drug sellers so boring? Weedcraft, Inc. places you in a weed hempire mogul function, the place you point-and-click your method to the highest by producing, cultivating, and promoting marijuana. You might want to keep away from hits to your earnings by making offers with cops, slicing offers with politicians, and discovering a manner in on each angle for just a few extra bucks. It’s like a point-and-click enterprise sport that occurs to characteristic weed.
Weedcraft, Inc. having the “included” on the finish of its title is simply so becoming and encapsulates the whole expertise. That is only a bizarre enterprise sport that occurs to incorporate weed. It’s boring. It’s sq.. Useful resource administration and revenue margins make me wish to take two sorts of blunt rotation to the top.
6. The entire stoner swag in Name of Responsibility
Whether or not you select to spend cash within the Name of Responsibility: Warzone beauty store, there’s no denying that there’s a plethora of decisions in terms of customization. Activision Blizzard has created some memorable items of digital garb to put on as you slay throughout the warzone, from ‘80s exercise gear to soccer uniforms, however it’s their weed gear that makes me cringe. I’m speaking cringe weed references that seem like the elements of a Spencer’s retailer that will make you and your mom uncomfortable. Cheesy pot leaves, multi-colored smoke, and extra might be added to your character, weapon, and avatar, which is sort of all uniformly lame on prime of being jarring imagery to see plastered everywhere in the “kill-people-for-points” navy imperialist gun sport. I don’t know. Perhaps I’m going for a unique vibe than you guys after I smoke?
Additionally, fuck Activision Blizzard for treating their staff like items of property, moderately than the hard-working people and human beings that they’re. Somebody get Bobby Kotick’s whiny, union-busting ass a joint so he’ll discover an individual inside himself.
I’ll add a disclaimer for Snoop Dogg’s inclusion in Warzone. Snoop is the exception. Snoop is cool. Clearly. It’s Snoop Dogg.
7. NARC, a lame-ass cop sport
Within the authentic 1989 NARC, not solely do you play as a “Narcotics Opposition Officer” however you additionally gun down homeless folks, drug sellers, and extra with a machine gun. And sure, gamers are additionally outfitted with missile launchers, permitting them to ship bloody appendages flying everywhere in the display screen.
I can’t think about what number of present cops performed this sport and thought, “I can’t wait to terrorize marginalized communities and unhoused folks, all within the title of ending the conflict on medication.”
The 2005 remake reimagined the unique premise with new characters and options. In both probably the most unintentionally based mostly commentary on police of all time or simply one thing somebody thought can be cool, gamers may even generate income by promoting the medication that they procure from people who they arrest. Sure, you possibly can take the medication from criminals, use them as power-ups for stopping folks with medication, and in addition promote them to make use of the earnings to cease those who even have medication. Identical to you.
It’s a little bit troublesome to play both model now, as a result of the ‘80s NARC has not been re-released or ported since Halfway Arcade Treasures 2, which launched in 2004 for the Xbox, Gamecube, and PS2—however it’s value enjoying when you’re in a position to.
Or you possibly can watch Sport Informer’s 2011 Let’s Play the place the group performs and reacts to this chaotic piece of gamer historical past. Helicopter explosions, missiles all over the place, and a number of the zaniest antagonists that I’ve ever seen in a online game make for an unintentionally satisfying expertise when stoned, regardless of its subject material.
