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Graffiti Game's Party Under Fire
By
Jen Chung
Published Aug 12, 2005
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published Aug 12, 2005
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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City Councilman Peter Vallone, who seems to have unofficially tagged (hee) himself the anti-graffiti Council member, wants the city to stop a permit for graffiti artists to tag subway car replicas, according to the NY Post. The party is for Atari's new game, Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, and people associated with the event tell the Post that Vallone is hypocritical, since one of the artists, Lady Pink, participating had been commissioned by Vallone to create a mural. There's also a quote from Animal magazine's Bucky Turco, who has been keeping an eye on Vallone's anti-graf remarks: "To actually try to stop the event is paramount to censorship, which is worse than graffiti. I really think this guy is using graffiti as a soapbox. I don't think he can get into the press for anything else."
Here are descriptions of the game's features:
- A revolutionary storyline written by Marc Ecko
- World-renowned hip-hop artist Talib Kweli as the voice of Trane
- Fighting mechanics that combine kicking, grappling and punching, along with improvised weaponry
- A groundbreaking graffiti gameplay system, designed to sharpen your skills as you tag with Aerosol, Rollers, Markers, Wheat Paste, Stickers and Stencils
- Eleven distinct city environments, with 20 gameplay levels
- Unique “Intuition” system, allowing you to find ideal places to tag
- Authentic tags from more than 50 real-life graffiti artists, six of whom appear in-game as mentors
- A digital “black book” to store unlocked tags and graf images
- As Trane grows from “toy” to “All City King,” his style and the state of graffiti evolve…
Begin in the 1980s’ train culture scene, where subways were prime targets for gaining fame; continue to a version of the silver-train era, a time of extreme anti-graffiti tactics when the government’s battle cry was “Take Back the City!”
No word on what the "goon squad" is like, but Gothamist wonders if there would ever be any potential for a measure like "level of the tag's photobloggability" (sigh, of course not - no one wants to acknowledge how much of a nerd they are). Gothamist says Atari should think positively and spin the game by saying "Hey, at least the kids are at home, getting their tagging thrills through this game and eating transfats than tagging and getting some good cardio in reality."
On the video game front, Gothamist is waiting for the Rockstar Games version of The Warriors.
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City Councilman Peter Vallone
Councilman Peter Vallone
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graffiti
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Lady Pink
marc ecko
News: NYC
ny post
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peter vallone
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Take Back
Talib Kweli
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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