Sports video games allow us to bowl or shoot hoops without ever having to get off the couch. These games are often branded with a professional athlete. In Nintendo 64’s NBA Courtside 2, it’s Shaquille O’Neal and, for Shaq, basketball is a very serious business.
We aspire to the grace of such professional athletes. They’re so good at what they do that the extraordinary often appears effortless, which is why it’s really, really fun to watch them fail. So when Arcangel reprograms the game to have Shaq through nothing but bricks, it’s like watching an extended sports blooper reel.
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