Mario Kart Love Song

Sam Hart’s singer/songwriter gig is not what it sounds like. The San Francisco-based musician’s acoustic ballad “Mario Kart Love Song” references the video game in its lyrics (“no one can touch us if we pick up a star”), while evoking the crooning sweetness of a tributary tune (typically my least favorite kind of song). Donning a green hat and a painted mustache as he sings, Hart strikes the right chord between sentimental and satirical.

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The Last Man, Just A Guy

Post-Pac Man Apocalypse

Variations of the phrase “The Last Man” have been used by Nietzsche (to describe the weak-willed anti-superman), as the moniker for Vincent Price’s character in the 1964 film The Last Man on Earth (later reprised by Will Smith in I Am Legend), and now for the Sony Computer Entertainment’s PS3 game The Last Guy.

The title is satisfyingly cryptic, evoking the kind of ultimate of ultimates that make hero-driven narratives so compelling. Though the game was released a few months back, the structure has been unjustly under-appreciated. Focus, people! This game features a cape-clad hero (really, is there any better kind of hero?) running around real cities (thanks to Google Maps) while trying to save survivors from zombies (PURPLE zombies!).

The music features the kind of twinkling digitalizations that make me proud to be a child of the ’80s, while the graphics are more in tune with their Pac-Man-for-the-21st-century simplicity. The game is equally straightforward: gather up as many blob-like people as you can without running into zombies, alien creatures, or out of time on the clock. It sounds pretty basic, but the combination of real world satellite images and otherworldly aggressors gives it a World War Z meets Choose Your Own Adventure feel.