Please don't toy with my emotions
Lionhead diary filmmaker responds

Time to put away childish things? Nope.

Parrapa_4 I've devoted a lot of time in recent months to some pretty heavy games: Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, Mass Effect, Persona 3, Half-Life Ep. 2 - all contain fairly significant amount of angst, violence, and suffering. Nothing wrong with that, of course--and I know I'm the one often whining about the paucity of video games for grown-ups--but sometimes it's nice to lighten things up a bit and revisit the more playful side of video games.

How else to explain all the fun I'm having lately with PaRappa the Rapper? With only a tinge of self-indulgent guilt, I've been swept completely into the surreal Colorform wackiness of PaRappa and his friends PJ Berri, Sunny Funny, Katy Kat, and Cheap Cheap the Cooking Chicken.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but when PaRappa first arrived on the PS1 in 1997, I avoided it like it was some kind of Playskool toddler game. I'm sure I was too busy with "real games" like GoldenEye and Total Annihilation to be bothered by a stupid looking music game with bad box art.

Ignorance doesn't usually pay off for me, but this time maybe it did. I'm glad I didn't play PaRappa back then because I don't think I would have appreciated it the way I do now. Call it second-childhood, midlife crisis, or sleep deprived newborn caretaker syndrome--whatever--for some reason right now is the perfect time for me to say "I Gotta Believe!"

Gitaroo Man arrives in the mail tomorrow - another game I've never played. Clearly I'm a lost cause. More on both games--and my slow decline into dementia--soon!

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