All a bit of light-hearted entertainment. Of course, it mattered little in the grand scheme of things.
Just as it felt like there was an element of skill to the game, it was all snatched away in an instant. No matter how hard you pressed ‘R’ to run away, you could end up being gunned down by the police through no fault of your own. What made it maddening was the random element - knowing that you could lose everything you’d worked to gain at the drop of a hat. Tech was limited and the game itself was extremely basic. The concept was simple, accessible - and seriously addictive.īut this was the ’90s. In-game credibility truly carried over into real life.ĭo you want to buy, sell, or jet? These were the most pressing decisions for a generation of young gamers in the ’90s, as they moved around New York finding cheap deals and trying to sell enough drugs to pay back the game’s loan shark, all while evading Officer Hardass and his deputies. Breaktimes became frantic clickathons, a quest to be top dog and win the bragging rights. Competition was almost as rife in schools as it was on the mean streets. Of course, it was all harmless fun, but whether you played Drug Lord or Dope Wars, the principles were there: drugs, street cred, the thrill of the trade. Meanwhile, in the world of gaming, several incarnations of turn-based strategy games were enabling a generation of kids to tap into the darker side of what that culture represented. We idolized rappers and consumed the sheer theater of the East Coast-West Coast feud, real-life tragedy and all. New York became the focal point of ’90s culture - the clothes, the music, the attitude - it was all must-have. From the seminal Illmatic onwards, hip-hop changed the world for a generation of kids and adults worldwide. Nas, Wu-Tang, Biggie…back in the 1990s, the East Coast scene was the birthplace of the hardcore brand of Gangsta Rap. Taking it back to the BlockZ It Was a Good Day