You’ll need some basic information to get the most out of the strip; I won’t even link it yet. The main thing you need to do is to get your mitts on the demo for Burnout Crash. Get it right away. Oh, you’ve already played it? You’re licensed for strip viewing. If not, you need to go get it. You need to play Rush Hour.
And you need to familiarize yourself with Dr. Beat.
You may find that you have become obsessed with Dr. Beat. You may find yourself wondering if he is a medical doctor or if his doctorate is in beats themselves. His distinctive, infectious intro music generates instant rapport, builds his personal brand, to the degree that the Rush Hour game type is boiled down to these brief, often explosive visits.
In Burnout Crash, you blow up your car to blow up other cars in an attempt to create barriers out of the wreckage. Each mode has a few philosophical distinctions, but Rush Hour is about not letting cars escape. When five cars have gotten through your gauntlet of shredded sedan, you lose - unless Dr. Beat can navigate through the same gauntlet. It’s an inversion of the usual goal, and it’s fun, because while the game’s ordinary drivers will swerve up on the curb, perform a “Brodie,” twist all out and get buck to avoid your shit, Dr. Beat makes almost no effort. Dr. Beat doesn’t give shit, and his vehicle’s intense flammability coupled with a pervasive ennui means that more often than not your “savior” is just the topmost body on a growing pile.
We assumed that his invincible theme had been cooked up in some Criterion laboratory, boiled down to a granular material with a street name like Frosty or Jumpdust and then shunted to an unknowing public, but it’s apparently an ancient track from Miami Sound Machine. It also has the most psychotic music video I’m aware of. No, don’t get up. I can embed it.
I’ve never been to Miami, I guess; maybe that’s regular shit.
(CW)TB out.
