Hail to the Chimp: Bungie Founder's New Game

Ever have a hankering for a fun party video game that you could play with your kids, but which also incorporated some witty-ish jabs about the political process?

Yeah -- me neither. But that's about the best way to describe an upcoming called Hail to the Chimp, due out next month on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.

Wideload Games CEO Alex Seropian says he's trying to introduce comedy to video games. "In the game industry, there's always been this tight cluster of action games. No one was trying humor," he said, during a visit to DC to show off the game.

Seropian's team has pulled this feat off before, in a nifty 2005 action game called Stubbs the Zombie that told the story of an undead door-to-door salesman. (Seropian, by the way, is still most famous for being the founder of Bungie Studios, a game company now kinda famous for the Halo series.)

Wideload's new game is about a bunch of cartoon-y animals that are all battling each other to win an election to be President of the Animal Kingdom. The activities involve racing around a circuit of fatcats, smashing vote machines, planting yard signs and that sorta thing. The game features a dose of media/political satire written by staffers at The Onion and The Daily Show.

It's an odd mix. And the game's publisher, Gamecock Media Group, has been trying to make a media splash for the title in an equally odd way: Gamecock folks have been showing up at political events, dressed in costume as the game's furry characters Woodchuck Chumley and Crackers the Chimp. Their next stop: The Pennsylvania primary later this month.

By Mike Musgrove  |  April 10, 2008; 3:47 PM ET  | Category:  Mike Musgrove
Previous: An Advertising Battle in the War Over White Spaces | Next: Two More Text-Message Defenders

Name:

Comments: