Wall Street Kid: One Smug Aryan Bastard

Classic Zeroes Material
By: Zartan; circa 2/02/00

Wall Street Kid: Hello Black Monday

I remember when this game came out; I thought it would be really cool. Cut me some slack, though -- I had every reason to think that this could be a nifty little game. The only stock market "game" I had played previous to Wall Street Kid was some crappy homemade program on the Apple II; you basically competed against yourself to see how much dinero you could stack up after, like, 50 turns or something. Watching the prices rise and fall was inexplicably thrilling, especially with a friend. God only knows what, exactly, I found so charming, but things like that from your childhood stick, and you're left as an allegedly sensible adult with tastes that don't make any rational sense. Anyway. Another reason I thought that this game would be boffo was that it was from Sofel, and by all appearances a successor to Casino Kid, another really bizarre game. It was the personality that made Casino Kid a standout -- you could get married five or six times, have your wallet stolen, interact with all manner of Las Vegas dingbat and hooligan -- and it was this very same personality that was notably absent in Wall Street Kid. Which is not to say, of course, that they didn't have their little attempt. I ended up getting this game for around a buck, years later, at one of those second-hand game shops while I was out scavenging with a friend. We spent the rest of the night laughing our asses off at this bloated, tortuous "game" that would make Sisyphus sit down and weep.
The problem, I guess, is the setting -- you're an overprivileged white kid surrounded by (a) people just like yourself, only much more so or (b) bland nobodies who exist only to serve you. Take a look at the face of "Pamela, the Patient Pet Dealer" and tell me it doesn't scream "drinking myself to death". The interface is clunky, repetitive, and dull, and the actual tasks that are set before you are nearly impossible to achieve, even if you do habitually abuse save states or copy down a password so convoluted it would constipate a cryptographer. Essentially, you stand to inherit big bucks -- surprise, surprise -- from some uncle you've never heard of... if you make big bucks on the stock market. One wonders about the point of this exercise, and then it hits you: oh yeah! The rich live only to get richer! And remember, "this is no April Fool's joke"!
For example, you're told from the start that you have a month to turn 500 grand into enough dough to "pamper your sweetheart and move in to [sic] a decent $1 million house". Hard enough without Ralph, the dipshit realtor, calling up to nag every time you sit down on the can with your trusty Wall Street Times to read about the latest giant tick attacks. Hard enough without your dingy girlfriend getting a wild hair up her ass that she likes dogs and has to have one right away. I've never passed this fucking point in the game and I, quite honestly, couldn't give a rat's ass. This game is dreadful. Meeting that requirement would mean the game goes on, which means that I'm treated to the same 30-second tune repeated over and over, unceasingly, forever and ever. I think I can do without that, thank you very much.
Wall Street Kid came out in 1990. Ten years later: where are all those charisma-free talking heads that changed Wall Street Kid from a boring, lifeless rich bastard simulator into a boring, lifeless rich bastard simulator worthy of special consideration and ridicule? We bugged their phones, cornered them in gas station restrooms, and threatened their children to get at the ugly truth.

	The Wall Street Kid, aka "Dick Rosely", found his investment career brought to a quick end when a highway sniper's bullet claimed a good chunk of his brain. His brilliant analytical mind reduced to hamburger, the Kid was eventually put into protective care in a "rest home", a drooling ward of the state. Fate has not continued to be unkind to the Kid, however -- his "Sir Care-A-Lot" line of fingerpainted Christmas cards are proving all the rage among disaffected, post-post-modern Gen X'ers.
	"Prisila the Walking Time Bomb" would have been closer to the truth. Prisila was forced to -- gasp -- seek employment after the Kid's gravy train was derailed, and the realities of retail work quickly ground her already fragile psyche into a fine bottle-blonde powder. She cooked and ate her poodle; this was in fact the first attention the pooch had received since the initial novelty had worn off. Prisila then shaved her head and claimed to be "Mrs. Timothy Van Patten" for a while, and ended up doing 14 months for mail fraud. She was last spotted in New Orleans, earning a living making sucker bar bets with foreign tourists.
	Larry's career as a high-flying lawyer ended with the Wall Street Kid. He attempted to salvage his life's work by changing his focus, but found he was neither charismatic, sympathetic, nor eloquent enough to defend car thieves, armed robbers, and wife beaters with any measure of success. Following an ill-advised remark to a client ("being sent to prison and having your ass used as currency by the alpha males is no April Fool's joke"), Larry was found stabbed to death and stuffed into his own briefcase. Todd Bridges was unavailable for comment.
	Ralph had known from the beginning that trading real estate just wasn't his cup of tea. His bitchy attitude ("How irresponsible," he chides when you fuck up) and his penchant for vapid, meaningless gossip made him an ideal candidate for his own Internet "news" website. The site (www.ralph-sez.com) was briefly successful, until I cut off the fucker's head and put it in a jar as a token to ward off other petulant video game characters.
	Ruth realized that the real money was not, as she'd previously thought, in ruthless banking, but in soft-core "mystery and/or suspense" movies. You may have seen the raven-haired Ruth in such films as Liquid Power, Illicit Desire, Lingerie Deathtrap, and the Cinemax exclusive Fatally Exposed: Red-Hot Loan Officer Nightmares Return.
	That crafty Stanley did rather well for himself. After a brief period of poverty and mental illness, throughout which he accosted strangers in the street and offered to "explain the stock market for $500", he started his own novelty business. His line of Y2K-related neckties, mouse pads, and shot glasses sold very well over EBay, and Stanley adds that any user with a feedback rating of 10 or more will have their merchandise shipped without his customary 10-day waiting period.
	Pamela never did crawl out of the bottle. A lifetime of selling overpriced and ultimately disposable pets to the very rich had destroyed her faith in humanity and herself. After a four-day bender, Pamela found herself tattooed, married to an abusive, alcoholic poet, and hundreds of miles from Wall Street. Her patience finally came to an end when Pamela was shot in the face in a Mexican bar.
	Cranky Cal's fall from grace was literal and lacking in any subtlety whatsoever; a fitting end for the matter-of-fact car dealer. Sales had been flagging and Cal was determined to save his business, even if it meant resorting to cheap publicity stunts involving bombastic radio commercials and free hot dogs "for the kids". After 96 straight hours of sitting on top of a flagpole to celebrate an inventory clearout, Cal succumbed to exhaustion and plummeted to his death.
	Austin agreed to join his fellow band members for a "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" reunion tour and album. They were met with remarkable success and a real-time strategy game based on the band is in the works.
	Doc eventually left the United States and led a six-week junta in Haiti. Doc was captured, executed, and resurrected through eeire voodoo rituals several times before his remains lost any semblance of their original shape and coherence. Local legends tell of a ambulatory puddle of gore, complete with jaunty cap'n's hat and corn-cob pipe, that slithers the streets in search of spilled whiskey or open flame.
	Walt Disney, aka "Art", was captured and retrieved by a six-man Imagineer strike force, and returned to his cryogenic chamber behind the Pirates of the Caribbean exhibit in Anaheim.

B.F. Skinner would be proud.

Game:
Developer:
Platform:
Type:
Emulated:
Released:

Wall Street Kid
Sofel
NES
Hateful, joyless rush-job
JNES
1990

Graphics:	Probably all-too-lifelike, heaven help us
Sound:	*After 3 minutes, you will* consider suicide**
Gameplay:	It's that fourth wheel on the shopping cart
Roving Packs of Giant Ticks bonus:	7 million points
Overall:	Die, Ralph, die.