It All Returns To Nothing (Mach Rider, Mad Max, The Mafat Conspiracy)

There's an addendum to be made. Phil Sandifer says that M.U.L.E. isn't really about capitalism at all. If you try to out-capitalism everyone else in there without giving a fig about the economy, you will destroy it. A planet laid to waste by the dread beast GREED's insatiable hunger for money. Irresponsibility, put to point in a Nintendo game. So M.U.L.E. is probably a lot better than I gave it credit for; I'd wager that if I had a PC version of it with instructions, I would enjoy it more. That's not the point here. The point is that this new reading of M.U.L.E. sets us up perfectly for the current entry. That game has a copyright on it of 1983, and it's in 1983 when the same sort of thing happened. The Video Game Crash, when Capitalism almost killed the entire concept of video games. 1983 was also when smarter capitalists in Japan invented the Famicom, and two years later the smart capitalists who killed video games brought it over as a grey box and saved the day. One of the video games they sold with the grey box came in a black box. It was called Mach Rider, and in that game you're a biker in the year 2112. A year ravaged by evil forces. In this wasteland, all you can do is ride. Ride down the road at fast speeds and attempt to avoid being rear-ended by evil go-karters gone mad. It is a fun enough game, albeit difficult. We have often referred to the Dance Apocalyptic and the Cold War here, but this is its own thing. In the wake of the Crash, we have the state of video gaming condensed. A desolate place where crazy people try cutthroat driving tactics in order to survive. To make more money, though money has become meaningless. What is valuable in this world?

Food, water, and gas.. The black oil will flow, after we experience death by a thousand scenarios. Global thermonuclear war, a zombie plague, Captain Trips, drilling too deep into the Earth's core. Whatever it was, it caused almighty Peko the Destructor to swing her blade across the planet. Now only the madmen remain, hoarding their supplies. Some sane folk survive, of course. The biker. The road warrior. Mad Max, they call him. He drives across the dreary cracked roads, only the sounds of his engine keeping him company. The Bangles are not at #1, nor is Kate Bush or Peter Gabriel. The radio only replies with static. All we have are the sounds of the engine, and exploding dynamite thrown from rubber fortresses. We can raid a base and put some raving lunatics out of their misery. In the absence of capitalism, we have bartering. Trade your food and water for gas... or if you dare, an arena pass. Compete for glory and victory, at risk of your car being rammed off an edge and exploding in a burning heap with you inside. So that's always nice. It's not very fun, but once Trenzalore has come the fun must end. While we're here, we can see what sparked this entire tiff that blew up the powder keg. Trenzalore herself is nothing more than a Mafat Conspiracy, after all.

Ah yes. The Mafat Conspiracy. That heady incident involving a crashed satellite and threatening letters sent to the Americans and the Soviets. The only man who could handle this nonsense was... expert sniper Duke Togo. For some reason. Journey to Paris, home of the six Mona Lisas, and find that B jumps and A attacks. Backwards and odd, but Duke Togo never plays by the rules. He cannot quite stop the end of the world, because he enters buildings and finds men who throw fucking kunai at him... and he can't draw his gun fast enough to stop them. He's an expert sniper, not a quick draw whiz. Christ, Duke, get your act together. I thought you blew up robot Hitler's brain! How did you even manage that? God, no wonder Peko struck us all down. You have potential, Duke, but you need to straighten up and fly right. No wonder video games died... but the Lady Capitalism accidentally created a higher power when she brought forth the grey box.

She created magic.