Mikie

An American high school. A heart-throb Lothario. A group of jocks, a group of girls, a group of granite-faced teachers. A sprinkle of romantic intrigue, a dash of mischievous capering, and a tinny soundtrack of covers that actually sounded better than the originals. A recipe for the mass-produced fast food that passes for American teen movies? Today, perhaps- but, some fifteen years ago, those were the ingredients of the haute cuisine of coin-op drama that was Mikie.

Playing as the eponymous hero himself, your mission was.... Well, your initial mission was just to escape from your classroom, with the REAL fun and excitement to follow fast and follow faster on your sneaker-sonic SCREEEEEECH out into the polished hallway. Wheee! Gently rebellious pranks at the expense of starched-shirt schoolteachers and ever so MANY amorous interludes ahoy! Effervescent and ebullient, one cast one's eye dismissively over the purely introductory level which separated you from the hedonistic high-jinks in the outside world, complacent and impatient. 'Always let the player have an easy early victory' runs the first rule of game-making- and it looked SO easy.

In order to open the door out into the corridors of pupil power, one needed to steal the hearts of five of one's classmates- hearts which they conveniently stored under their desks. Earning the trust, admiration and eternal felicity of these classmates amounted to assaulting them until they moved to a different desk, leaving their heart POWERLESS TO RESIST as you suavely swept it from the floor, lightly dusted it off, and slipped it into your packed lunch box. Meanwhile, the teacher of the class abandoned his academic obligations in favour of pursuing you everytime you left your seat, killing you if he came into contact with you; which I can only assume means that he had either the disposition of my old English teacher or the breath of my old Maths teacher. Whatever the case, the actual collection of the hearts was a chore, not much to be enjoyed- the opening of the door upon the arrest of the cardiac organs in question was a reward for patience rather than for skill, for sitting quietly until the teacher was at the other side of the room rather than attempting to bamboozle him into random changes of direction with some fancy footwork. But there it was. You laid claim to the final organ, sat down on the vacated seat, and waited in trepidation for the teacher to shuffle off out of the way and leave you a clear break for the freedom you so richly deserved. You waited. And you waited. And you waited.

Finally, it occurred to you that, in a rare display of rudimentary AI, the teacher was DELIBERATELY blocking the door, making it well nigh impossible for you to squeeze through and out into the next level. Contemplating your next move in light of this breaking news, the relative sanctuary of your seat was forever shattered by the revelation of the teacher's hitherto untrumpeted ability to not only attack from DISTANCE, but also to attack you EVEN WHEN YOU WERE SITTING DOWN. The tedium-inducing industry of the last ten minutes revoked and replaced by the screen that had first greeted your tap of 1UP, your own heart plummeting into your feet, rolling out of the toes of your sneakers and under the desk as you contemplated another five sessions of unrewarded toil, fly-by-night romances and taper-thin hopes quenched by teachers whose powers were limited neither by law nor by physics... Oh, those were the happiest days of our lives, alright, and Mikie's simulation of them rendered it an ideal punishment for home-school kids who didn't appreciate what a good thing they had going.