playing jackass: the game part 1

I am pretty bad at video games. 

If I want to blame anything but myself, I can attribute this to a gendered childhood socialization thing I missed out on, like watching Indiana Jones or learning how to read a baseball scoreboard. This doesn’t really hold water though because that’s probably not how childhood socialization works. I also wound up watching Indiana Jones a couple of years ago and have gone to dozens and dozens of baseball games. So I guess I’ll have to just admit that I am bad at video games. 

It’s not that I haven’t tried, I had a Wii and checked out slow games at Blockbuster. I also have had every iteration of the Nintendo DS but that was exclusively to play Animal Crossing. It’s just always been a public humiliation ritual for me to get dragged into a round of Super Smash Bros, not know what’s happening, and get swallowed whole by Kirby. I don’t even know who Kirby is. I was always the bad babysitter who didn’t know how to work COD, a teammate who got repeatedly crushed in Fortnite, and naturally, my WiiFit scored me that imaginary BMI that made me not want to play anymore.

This brings me to now, the present, where I am still bad at video games unless you count Animal Crossing New Horizons on the Switch in which case I run that island like I am an actual mayor. I am also very fast at digital crossword puzzles but they don’t have E-Gaming events for that.

This all being said, the day I launched this blog, my friend Bailey texted me and said that if I wanted to play the Jackass video game for a post, she could rent me a Playstation 2. 

So I made a purchase on April 8th. The rest of this post will be a recreation of the night I started playing Jackass: The Game.

sunday april 13th

1:02 pm: I got lunch, checked my email, and texted Bailey that the game was allegedly in my mailbox. 

1:33 pm: I cried in the airport. Unrelated to Jackass: The Game. I thought maybe I should cut this but I think it's good to know that before I played Jackass: The Game for 5 hours, I cried in the Austin airport. 

1:46 pm: Bailey sent me a selfie with a rented PS2. 

2:00 pm: I got on a plane from Austin to DC.

2:30 pm: I watched The Bourne Identity vertically on my phone and listened to Definitely Maybe by Oasis on the plane. “Supersonic” is the greatest song ever recorded. The Bourne Identity was probably better on a big screen.

5:09 pm: The plane landed. I flipped my phone back onto regular non airplane mode and got a text from Bailey that she had set up the console at her place. Hell yeah. This was so easy.

5:10 pm: I got off the plane, picked up a coffee from the Southwest Dunkin in DCA (not that one, the other one), got a ride to my apartment, found the game in my mailbox, ordered dinner, received the dinner, caught another ride to Bailey’s place. 

6:00 pm: I made myself at home on Bailey’s couch and shoveled fried rice and chicken into my mouth while she showed me the pictures she was editing from an Anita Velveeta show the night before. She had a speck of dust on her lens and had to individually edit it out of every picture.

6:34 pm: Bailey also revealed that the Playstation 2 was missing a cable so while I was in the air she actually went to not one but TWO Game Stops in the DMV to find one. She got it. I still need to Venmo her back. Bailey please text me. 

6:43 pm: Sometime around here-ish our friend Rook also showed up for the game. So for those keeping track: we have one totally terrible video game player on the couch (me), one who is perfectly okay (Rook), and the best player is Bailey who is sitting in her desk chair still editing that speck of dust. 

It’s time to play.

7:00 pm: I turn on the game. 

7:00 pm: We get momentarily stuck on the homepage of the PS2. 

7:00 pm: We get the game loaded. 

7:00 pm: Click through some stuff. The title screen hits.

7:01 pm: The title screen fades into a compilation of scenes from the game, it seems that they animated some real-life Jackassian moments and fake ideas that felt Jackassian. So like Party Boy, Lacy chasing Wee Man, etc. mixed with bumper cars and skydiving. Overall, it's in these frames that I realize this is going to be a bad idea.

7:01 pm: I realized this is going to be a bad idea because this game is quite frankly fugly. The game was clearly not meant to be played on a modern flat screen so everything is a bit stretched and slow. The console we’re using is also probably well-loved but two decades old. This is all devastating for me, a bad video game player. 

7:02 pm: We take a deep breath and hit start.

7:02 pm: We are greeted by the menu page which is also offensively blue and lists a couple of things: the story mode, the challenge mode, the multiplayer mode, a market, and an extras gallery. It’s here we realize that structurally, the story is split into a bunch of minigames, likely the same as the listed challenge/multiplayer sections, but in order to play the minigames, we probably have to unlock them from the game. (We were right.) We select “mtv story mode.”

The game opens on the scene of a stunt gone wrong, ambulance lights and a lot of jeering from an animated Johnny Knoxville who I will call Sinister Knoxville. A banana peel on the ground tells a story as old as time, someone got hurt slippin’. The person in question? Jeff Tremaine.

According to this Sinister Knoxville, a stunt went wrong and Tremaine sprained his vagina on the first day of shooting and can’t direct the season of Jackass. So you, The Mighty Gamer, will have to step in and direct. In this scene, you are also joined by Steve-O, Chris Pontius, and Ryan Dunn, who are standing next to a big shopping cart and complaining about Tremaine. Sinister Knoxville outlines the gist of the game in the final seconds, “You’re the director, find the rest of the crew, shoot some funny stuff, and don’t sprain your vagina.”

A couple of things. The first is that I don’t want to be the new Jeff Tremaine, why couldn’t Spike Jonze have fallen? I wish someone would look at me just once and say, “She’s perfect, she even knows a lot about Beastie Boys…that’s the new Spike Jonze.” Instead, an evil man looked at me and said “You’re the new Jeff.” The second is that, on a more serious note, the mildly misogynistic language that Sinister Knoxville uses is out of Jackass’ ordinary language. A kind of eye-rolling but grimy feeling set in after this cut scene. Like okay, I can immediately tell this is going to be kind of a bastardized Jackass.

7:03 pm: So we leave the scene as the ambulance is pulling away and the full gameplay is revealed via a phone call from a hospital-ridden Tremaine. The gameplay is not easy, I may add, it only semi-makes sense. Essentially: 

You, the player, are the director now and you have to get the season finished for MTV. You have to collect the best footage by recording the guys who you are actually playing as. Yes, you’re the director conceptually but you are playing as unlockable dudes and an omnipotent camera, I guess, is recording. Oh, and you have to find the guys, you only have a couple to start. To get the best footage you have to play through a series of stunts aka minigames. To get the footage you complete the minigame and most importantly (this is where I flip my mic into the crowd and everyone yells:) GET HURT. Yes! The more injuries you have the better the footage I guess. You also get more money for more injuries.

However, the money is not for the crew, it's for MTV. Weirdly political choice. So it’s 7 episodes divided into about 5 minigames per episode. Right, also you have to make $500,000 per season for “advertisers” and once you hit the $500,000 mark, you can progress into the next episode. Performing well on all of this will also boost your ratings. If you’re keeping track at home, I am now embroiled in the game, the footage, the advertising revenue, the crew, the stunts, the episodes, and the ratings. Sounds confusing? That’s because it is.

7:03 pm: I say “Huh?” out loud. And then press the button to start the first stunt/minigame.

7:04 pm: We watched the intro sequence again because I hit the wrong button and sent us back.

episode one

pachinko precipice

7:07pm: We are presented with the first game, Pachinko Precipice. You are also presented with this soulless Chris Pontius.

In this minigame, your playable jackass gets kicked off a cliff and, as gravity does, slides to the bottom. Your job is to make the fall funny. It's here where the game also reveals that each of these minigames has objectives to make more money (called the video footage wishlist) like “hit the mattress” or “slide 300 feet.” This game feels simple enough.

7:08 pm: I cannot tell you how fucking funny this was. Not understanding the controls and not reading the instructions clearly, I sent Steve-O’s lifeless body about two feet down a cliff because I couldn’t figure out how to play this and direct him down, His limp broken form inching towards the edge of the cliff and the hand of God dragging his body into cacti very slowly.

7:11 pm: I screw around with this for like another 10 minutes trying to get a feel for how this game works. We’re all laughing and having a good time. I don’t get a feel for how the game works. Numerically, I don’t make any actual progress and eventually just go on to the next thing after like…literally not figuring this out. 

roof top cart stop

7:21 pm: This is the first “Wee Game” in the series. Wee Games are not materially different from the other minigames except I think if you go into multiplayer mode, it’s just Wee Games and you can play them with one other friend. That being said, I don’t know why they have these. Wee Man is also not a playable character yet. Logistical fiasco.

But the premise here was simple, it's a race to the edge of the building on a shopping cart and you (Dunn) play chicken with Pontius about rolling fast in a cart and stopping closest to the edge without flying off. 

I don’t want to brag but I crushed this. After totally not understanding Pachinko Precipice, my training in the mines of Animal Crossing fishing was finally put to good use, if I know nothing, at least I know how to push a single button with accuracy.

Somewhere around here, because I played a perfect round, we got enough progress to unlock an outfit. I don’t remember which one it was exactly here but I think it was Pontius’ devil costume. More on this.

suburban wakeboarding

7:27 pm: I just don’t like looking at this game.

This is the first of many minigames where the goal is to hit as much shit as possible while in motion. It’s also the first where you can injure your jackass to the point of the game ending. This makes like no sense because they just established that you get points for breaking your body. Anyway, this is where the clunkiness of an old game on an old system connected to a new TV got bad. It was hard to maneuver, I guessed that there was legitimately something off with the sensor (also I am bad at this) and we got stuck here for a while before just moving on. But look at that Steve-O Health Bar. He looks like my dog.

party boy

7:53 pm: Having a Party Boy game this early feels a bit like showing your hand. Gameplay-wise, all I can say as a nonexpert was that the gameplay was Dance Dance Revolution-style aka pressing coordinating buttons with a rotating time limit. However, with the old system issue system I named above, this wasn't as coordinated as it should be. I also can’t press the patterns on the controller without looking down.

8:10 pm: Bailey took the controller and did it for me.

8:14 pm: Bailey maxed out the points.

golf rally

8:15 pm: Of all the games this far, this feels the most familiar to a cinematic moment. The setting is based on Golf Cart Antics in Jackass the Movie, using similar fake dinosaurs and windmills to decorate the course. It’s also a lot of jumping hills and crashing in sandtraps. Just no concussions this time. 

8:16 pm: This was very….Yay! Yippee! Wee! I'm going to crash into everything I see! Woohoo!

8:24 pm: I’ve had my fun. “Onto Episode 2!” I think to myself. We get back to the title page, ready to move on and realize that we have not made the needed $500,000 to go on. In fact, we made $170,000 accidentally. It dawns slowly. We have to go back through the games and try to make the money up. 

8:26 pm: This is when Rook takes the controller from me and goes back to Pachinko Precipice.

At this point, all three of us spend the next 30 minutes passing the controller around, actually working towards the objectives, instead of skipping through the games. With the power of teamwork, we do it.

8:59 pm: Bailey asks if anyone wants a beer.

8:59 pm: Rook and I nod.

A note about the music. While Tony Hawk Pro Skater made their soundtracks a pop cultural point, this did not. The songs were very much just different tracks from artists the series usually leans on: Smut Peddlers, CKY, Chris Pontius’ songs. While it started fun, dirtbag punk stuff, it was getting old fast as we kept replaying games.

episode two

9:00 pm: A cut scene brings us to a gym where the one and only Preston Lacy is getting his sweat on. He’s watching something like Extra or Entertainment Tonight which is detailing the situation the show is in aka Jeff in the hospital. I don’t care, WE UNLOCKED LACY!

9:00 pm: Onto the next episode. Bailey also made a snack around here I think.

suburban catapult

9:02 pm: This is a new kind of game, one that uses a power charger kind of thing to fling your jackass high up or scrape the grass. Using the Deathsling2000, you also get to launch your jackass at all kinds of things, a glass greenhouse, a pool, something combustible, a moving truck, bricks generally. It’s easily replay-able for lots of injuries and lots of dollars. Yay!

elephant poo dive

9:14pm: Bro.

9:15pm: So this is another Wee Game and another game based on pressing combos of buttons quickly.

9:16pm: I try my hand. But I learned my lesson.

9:17pm: I wordlessly passed the controller to Bailey.

9:19pm: She crushes and we move on.

Note: At this point, we have unlocked lots of costumes from different levels and noticed that not only does each character have several options based on show outfits, but they all have a pantless version. The game, despite everything, also seemed really determined to properly represent their tattoos. This is all to say that Steve-O’s back tattoo of himself did make it into the pixels.

big balls

9:20 pm: Do I even like playing this game? 

9:20 pm: Who cares. 

9:20 pm: Whatever, so Big Balls is a game where your jackass faces off against the other guys while rolling around in those big inflatable human hamster balls. You also do it on a skyscraper and the main objective is to bounce all the other players off the building to their pixelated demise. 

It’s at this moment that a real benefit of this game hit me, lethal stunts. They could finally do the most dangerous stuff and all it would cost them is millions of dollars and ugly graphics. The perfect deal. Yeah dude!! Let’s destroy each other’s digital entities!!!

9:22 pm: This was quickly ruled as impossible to play. 

9:40 pm: Bailey got us through it.

poo tug

9:41 pm: While Big Balls was really unlike anything in the shows/movie, Poo Tug was languidly semi-reminiscent of the time Steve-O swam in the LA River. 

9:42 pm: Can you tell I’m grasping at straws.

9:45 pm: All my haters become my waiters when I sit down at the table of success. I crushed this first try.

demolition golf

9:46 pm: The mission, should you choose to accept it, is to destroy Bam's house with grenades.

Factass: Bam is not in this game because of his deals with Tony Hawk Pro Skater. It kind of takes a toll on the game honestly, but I guess they figured a loophole would be to put a house that looks like Bam’s in the game. Plus a van that looks like Phil’s and a sports car that also looks like Bam’s. 

Men will pay millions of dollars to build a video game replica of their buddy’s house, distribute it worldwide, and tell players to slam grenades into it, before just going to therapy.

9:46 pm: We pass the controller around for a long time, yelling and cheering. This is the last time we’ll do this.

10:34 pm: We get through Episode 2.

We also found out that if you complete an episode, you get to watch a random clip from Jackass. Not the movies, the show, which, as with all the MTV branding, indicates that this is truly an extension of the series that ended in 2001, not the blockbuster movie that came out the year before. 

These clips kind of became the driving factor for finishing the game, at least to me. I wanted to see what was selected to be immortalized in the game. So, after we finished Episode 2, the unlocked clip was the historic goldfish stunt from the first season of the show. Steve-O pointed out in his memoir that if you watch it back, you’ll notice that he’s so nervous he can’t introduce himself, upon this rewatch — he is right.

episode three

Okay, I am done with the screenshots. You get the gist, it looks bad. So we get to Episode 3 and unlock Wee Man. In the story, Wee Man was recently arrested and Sinister Knoxville argues with a truly unintelligible Steve-O to go bail him out. It’s just kind of pointless to do this reveal because I have already seen Wee Man in the Wee Games. Does no one care about continuity?

I’m going to rush through these next ones.

snow job

10:35 pm: This is like the suburban wakeboarding thing but in the snow. Notably the two snowboarders, Danger Ehren and Dave England, are not unlocked characters yet. If I was them I would have made this a problem. This game was pretty fun. I think it was also the point when we decided that we were done with the soundtrack. We muted the game and went back to listening to Bailey’s mix. Turnpike Troubadours and Boygenius and Pretty Bitter and Origami Angel. 

whac a wee man

10:50 pm: It’s in the name. I whacked him. I didn’t want to do that to him. 

meat man

10:53 pm: This was a maze game where you try to outrun dogs and there’s some meat too. I did not outrun the dogs.

11:01 pm: Rook got the controller and carefully outran the dogs.

extreme juggling

11:12 pm: Okay one more picture. Look at this.

11:12 pm: I totally forgot but this game had us in late-night shambles. It makes no sense. Dave England like throws Wee Man the balls to juggle and you have to keep them in the air. I tried and got like two dollars. Rook tried and maxed out the points by essentially just hitting one button really fast. Freaking king.

urban wakeboarding

11:29 pm: Suburban Wakeboarding but with taxi cabs. 

11:34 pm: Like everything up to this point, we have to go back through all the games and get more points for dollars.  

12:03 am: We silently get through Episode 3 and move into Episode 4.

episode four

It’s all blending together. I think Danger Ehren was introduced here. I don’t care. I just don’t care. I don’t care now while I write it either. 

bumper kings

12:03 am: At this point we are eyes glazed, pushing through this game. Bailey breaks the silence, “This is like a weirdly intuitive game design.” She’s honestly right. You have to charge these bumper cars by moving them and once they are charged you can electrocute other jackasses off the roof. It also means the game was fairly impossible to play. This was a Classic Bailey’s Turn.

oddly shaped shooting

12:14 am: I am sorry Wee Man and Preston Lacy. I don’t believe in violence. 

super bowled

12:27 am: Giant hamster ball is back and this time we’re rolling down a hill. 

wee hand

12:34 am: This is that knife game where you stab between your fingers but minus the creepy song. So seriously, Rook and I thought we would crush because we had played a variation of it in middle school. We realized quickly that it was probably easier to do IRL than here. Wee Man, we stabbed your animated hand so many times. 

new york pogo

12:39 am: Oh okay it’s a gameI pogo on a skyscraper? Get fucked. 

12:40 am Rook leaves because it's past midnight. Good call. 

12:41 am: I'm re-frustrated just typing this. For the next 30 minutes, I just flipped between games over and over trying to finish this level and get over halfway through the game. I just can’t get the money I need. (Reader: there was a big tool to make money that I was missing, I wouldn’t know it for weeks.)

12:42 am: Bailey went to bed. 

12:42 am: I’m on the couch.

12:52 am: I’m still on the couch. 

1:02a m: I’m still on the couch. 

1:12 am: I’m still on the couch, playing nonsensically, just trying to make $500,000.

1:15 am: I called it. Who even cares anymore? I don’t. I can’t think straight. I’m sweaty. I call an Uber and tell Bailey I’ll be back again for revenge.

1:18 am: I’m leaving her apartment, walking to the elevator and thinking about the game and the fact that I cried in the airport earlier. I think back to the beginning of the game. The title card, the intro, the one screen I flipped through. I stopped and realized what that screen was. 

1:19 am: It was a warning. This game needed a memory card in order to save anything. We played without one. If I wanted to finish the game, we would have to start all over again.

To be continued.