Mafia Wars/Heineken

Game: Mafia Wars, Zynga, 2009, Online
Beer: Heineken, 24 fl. oz., 5% abv
# of beers consumed during play: 2
Level Reached: 63...and counting...
Level of Intoxication: Drunk

Game
Anyone who knows me personally had to know this was going to happen sooner or later. For a short time I managed to escape this game's clutches and lead a normal life, playing games that had clear endings and short-term goals. Eventually though, like a smack addict with his favorite bent, charred spoon, I came home. When I came back, the game was exactly as I had left it, my cash, my character, all had been waiting patiently for me to come back to my senses. So I sat down, caught up, and went to work.

Gameplay
Go find an accountant, give him a gun, hop him up on angel dust and occasionally beat him up in his sleep and you have the basic thesis that makes Mafia Wars operate. Being a browser game, Mafia Wars lacks fancy 3D graphics and slick, tightly defined narratives. What it does have however is a stat-based gameplay system that is so sprawling and robust, filling virtually any niche that a potential casual player would want to exploit, veneered with such a smooth coating of violence and mayhem, that not playing it is tantamount to placing a plastic bag over your head and depriving yourself of oxygen. Please allow me to qualify that last statement. When World of Warcraft dropped, it attracted, black-hole-like, an entire subset of gamers that up to that point had been subsisting off a diet of games that met their hunger, but never seemed to satisfy it completely. In WoW, these hardest of the hardcore found a game system so deep and robust, they literally fell into its embrace completely. Mafia Wars is the Casual Gamer answer to WoW. It is the World of Warcraft for people who don't play games, and it succeeds brilliantly.
The secret is in the timer-based gameplay. The ability to log on, play for five minutes and log off is so powerful and intrinsic a gameplay mechanic, it borders on the ludicrous. The hook is logging back in after a few hours, and seeing what has transpired in that time you were away. Someone may have attacked you, your energy has replenished, some friends may have logged in and requested your help. All of these things point to this ultimate goal of furthering your bank account and your character. This alone would get most of the population with daily access to a computer to log in and kill some fools, but the insaniest (yes, I said insaniest) thing is that the addiction doesn't stop there. In a move that leads me to believe the game designers are disciples of Satan, the game has a host of items to collect, a rather bountiful host of items which are obtained in a multitude of ways, and serve to assist you in your felonious quest should you have the veracity to collect a complete set. The problem is that certain items are so rare as to be virtually non-existent, and the average player can go for months staring balefully at an item set with only one piece missing, praying to dark gods that it drops on their next set of jobs, making the game less a mafia murder simulator and more a flashback to the days of baseball cards when you would get together with all the other kids on the block and rifle through stacks of cards murmuring "need it, need it, got it, need it, got it, got it, got it..."
Graphics/Sound
Being a game that, by necessity, has to be able to play on a wide range of technological platforms, the graphics are pretty much non-existent. What there is consists of fancy buttons, static images, and clear, easily readable text. In that capacity at least, the graphics manage a feat that many expensive, over-produced console and PC games can never seem to achieve; that is, being clear, well defined and tightly integrated into the game, allowing any player to enjoy the core of the game first, and the graphics second. Then again, it's easier to say this game has virtually no graphics at all, and leave it at that. One thing that's noticeable when you happen to ice another player is the image that comes up...that guy is seriously creepy, and I'm glad that I know of no real-life equivalent to him, otherwise I would never come out of my house. I suppose it's worth mentioning that most of the pictures fall into the "creepy-I'm-glad-it's-not-real" category. Then again, who needs artists when your game is like liquid distilled crack cocaine injected directly into one's eyeball?

Sound...Well, while the graphics maintain a certain presence, sound is absolutely not there at all, owing to the fact that this is a browser game and 99% of the people who play it are doing so on COMPANY TIME. If this game had sound they would be CAUGHT AND FIRED IMMEDIATELY because people could hear them PLAYING IT INSTEAD OF FILING TPS REPORTS LIKE THEY SHOULD. If you absolutely need sound, play the soundtrack to The Godfather while you play...it'll work trust me.

Story
Mafia Wars really doesn't have any story to speak of, although the underlying narrative is you work your way up through the ranks in a world where everyone is in a mafia, and everyone fights for seemingly endless resources. Besides, who needs story when the game sucks you in faster than a hooker cross-bred with an industrial shop-vac? Story to this game is like an intervention to an alcoholic, it just takes away from the time you could be using to kill strangers virtually over the internet. Damn interventions...

Beer
Again, because I'm dirt poor, wife comes in and saves the day. This time she demanded credit in the review for subsidizing the beer portion of the article, so...credit and stuff. Anyways, Heineken; that green-bottled brew from the bosom of Holland is the focus here, and if I hadn't drank 48 ounces of this stuff, perhaps I could focus a bit better. The smell from the bottle is skunky and pungent, an odor that is very unique, and may turn drinkers of domestic brews off. The nice thing about the smell is that it doesn't lie, it accompanies a beer that is sour and sharp and hits the tongue in all the right ways. Heineken garners the kind of non-denominational following that few other beers manage, a non-descript and alloyed devotion that changes with the whims of those enamored with it. Such commentary is less an indictment of Heineken and more on the subject of keeping an open mind in regards to that which one becomes accustomed. Few alcoholic beverages are able to match this "loosely fanatical" following, either becoming frighteningly equivalent to false gods, or living in the land of the exile, drunk only by wayward, silly, and undiscerning individuals who run beer reviewing websites. This beer is an import from Europe, and is unapologetic in every facet, it practically screams "love me or hate me, I am what I am." Heineken, distant cousin to Popeye. Who would have known?

The taste, as noted above, is bold and tangy, with an almost salty aftertaste, leading the drinker to either be a total vagina-head and hate it, or man up and realize that taste + beer = awesome and emerge butterfly-like from their cocoon of cheap domestic brew and soar through the clear blue sky that is overpriced import lager. There is a strange undertone to the taste I would readily attribute to grass (the kind that you mow, bonehead), but which integrates nicely with the rest of the beer, resulting in a very welcome and well balanced departure from the rank-and-file of most beers, particularly those occupying the domestic camps.

The truly rewarding thing about Heineken is the drunk that it gives out. A wonderful combination of floaty and clumsy, it actually seems to enhance the mental faculties and allows a semblance of normal function over the foundation of physical impairment. More than a modicum of logistic thinking is retained, which makes this both a blessing and a curse. The 5% abv can easily overwhelm in greater quantities, leading to an alarming occurrence of Heineken drinkers having more self-confidence in their abilities than they actually posses. Just sayin'. Still, for the cautious-minded, this beer allows the normal operation of pickup lines, conversational discourse, and carefully measured information sharing, while still reaping the benefits of reduced inhibition, coordination, and personal limitations. In this context, excess is a frame of mind.

The Matchup
Mafia Wars and Heineken don't have much in common, but when used with one another seem to get along just fine. Both do have a certain well-refined quality, and while Mafia Wars' quality is largely addictive and diabolical, and Heiny's is more of a tried and true type, it is patently clear that the makers of both had a very strong handle on what the hell they were doing when they plied their craft. On the other hand, both properties require a specific personality to truly adhere to the gifts on offer, with others only partaking in passing. But if you are the type that gets something pure out of either Mafia Wars or Heineken, God help you, you'll be here a while.

Cheers/Game on.