If conservative website Breibart and the development team of Hatred made a videogame together, it would resemble Blue Estate. To play Blue Estate is to step into a bizarro, hyper-conservative, right wing universe where guns are the only conversation starter and characters are stereotypes questionable even for the 1930s.
Blue Estate laughs as the scenario purposefully inflames liberal ideologies. Led by neurotic Italian Tony Luciano, Blue Estate opens by breaking into a Chinese strip club. A plus size, well endowed woman dressed as a mermaid swims in a fish bowl. She almost drowns, but she’s fat and that’s okay to Blue Estate. Gawking at the bowl and its occupant are Asian assailants, mocking her figure. The mermaid suit and seashell nipple coverings are moderate. Other women – in the club or otherwise – dress only in lingerie.
The gangster’s leader speaks in condescending, broken, accented dialog – whiny shouts of, “Why you here?” while performing imbalanced kung fu routines. The only missing trait of intolerance are buck teeth. Blue Estate isn’t trying to hide the crude racism. Rather, it sheepishly celebrates like a small child who stole a cookie. Blue Estate believes it’s getting away with mannerisms unfit for the days of Charlie Chan. One playable black character is added as an aside to Luciano, but in a “see, we totally have a black guy so it’s okay,” way.
That’s all before Blue Estate goes on the attack to obliterate the sensitivity of animal rights groups. Kicking leg-humping chihuahuas is Blue Estate’s running gag. Hilarious to the right person, apparently, since it happens six times through the exhaustively overlong stages.
The light gun shooter dies here; this is the genre’s grave. It used to be a holder of cops versus robbers or cowboys versus Indians or special forces versus terrorists. Now it’s a space for political ideologies so crude, they’re primed for a Donald Trump campaign tour.
Then again, there are no light guns in Blue Estate, only Kinect motion commands or a controller. Maybe the genre is safe, whether or not the conventions make up the gameplay. Not that it matters how one interacts with Blue Estate; it’s hideous no matter the style.
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